Noam Maggor begins Brahmin Capitalism with a big question: “How did a slave-owning, cotton exporting republic become a hegemonic industrial nation in the span of less than four decades?” (p. ix). He argues that the answer to this question can be found at the “subnational level of analysis—city, metropolis, territory and region—which have often been concealed under the blanket cast by more conventional national optics” (p. x). The specific subnational story he focuses on involves the efforts of Boston’s financial elite to reshape the political and legal infrastructure in ways that promoted their economic interests. To be clear, Maggor does not argue that Boston capitalists were responsible for the transformation of the American economy; he does argue that stories like theirs provide a path to understanding this transformation because many of the central economic institutions of the late nineteenth century were contested at the state and local level. Like other historians of capitalism, he wants to show that “modern capitalism was the contingent historical outcome of messy and drawn out confrontations between social groups with competing visions of political economy” (p. 11). So, this is not just the story of the Boston Brahmins; it is also the story of the mechanics, farmers, laborers, and small business people who opposed them, people that Maggor refers to broadly as populist.

Maggor employs a wide array of primary sources to tell stories that alternate between Boston and the West. Chapter 1 describes the movement of Boston capitalists into western business ventures in the years after the Civil War. Maggor shows that Boston’s financial elite were not passive investors, collecting interest on family fortunes built up through trade and textile manufacture. Young men from wealthy families traveled west to develop copper mines in Michigan and livestock yards in Kansas City. Chapter 2 turns to conflicts over municipal boundaries and public finances in Boston. Boston’s financial elite generally opposed efforts to annex neighboring towns and increase taxes to pay for expanding city services. In this chapter Maggor also makes a case for the cohesion of his alternating stories about Boston and the West, showing that at least some Brahmins believed events in the two places were connected and that it would be better for Boston “to send her capital forth to civilize, enlighten and educate the World than that she should sit supreme upon a few hills and reign over one port” (p. 66). Chapter 3 explores the role of Boston capitalists in developing the West through the story of Henry Minot, who began his career as an unpaid clerk in the brokerage firm of Jackson and Curtis. When the firm sent Minot on an expedition to investigate investments in the West he developed an expertise in railroads that eventually led to his role as vice-president of the St. Paul, Minneapolis and Manitoba and, later, the Atchison Topeka and Santa Fe. Chapter 4 describes the conflict over a request by the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association to use the Boston Common for an industrial exhibit, which Boston’s financial elite opposed. Chapter 5 tells the story of conflicts between populist and corporate interests during state constitutional conventions in the West. The conflicts over the regulation of water rights, corporations, railroads, mines, and labor relations are interesting, but the chapter strains the argument that the book forms a cohesive whole. Maggor suggests that when populist proposals emerged “it fell on local compradors—men who had forged relationships with eastern financiers” (p. 168) to oppose them. The connection to Boston, however, is implied rather than established. He shows that many western businessmen were concerned about the potential negative effects of populist proposals on investment, but he does not show that the eastern financiers were involved, or even interested, in the debates. Chapter 6 returns to Boston and conflicts over public finances. In the conclusion Maggor suggests some parallels with current economic and political issues while reiterating his claim that the national economy in the late nineteenth century was created out of the patchwork of local institutions, which had been shaped by local conflicts.

Although Brahmin Capitalism provides detailed accounts of the arguments made in these local conflicts, it gives relatively little attention to the outcomes. We learn, for instance, that the “constitutions of Colorado, Wyoming, and Washington mandated strict regulation of safety in mines. Those of Idaho Montana, and North Dakota did not” (p. 176), but we do not learn why the outcomes differed or what consequences can be attributed to these different outcomes. Consequently, Maggor only takes us part of the way toward answering the big question he started with.

Although Brahmin Capitalism could have pushed further in explaining the variation in outcomes, the stories it tells about the conflicts between “Brahmins” and “populists” over economic institutions should be of interest to both business and economic historians. For economic historians, it may also be worth noting that Brahmin Capitalism does not display the hostility toward economics that can be found in some other recent histories of capitalism. Indeed, Maggor explicitly situates his narratives about Bostonian investment in the West in the context of quantitative work done by economic historians. Moreover, his central concerns closely parallel those of many economic historians, who also believe that understanding the evolution of institutions at the state and local level is essential for understanding American economic development (see, for instance, Naomi R. Lamoreaux and John Joseph Wallis, “States, Not Nation: The Sources of Political and Economic Development in the Early United States,” Johns Hopkins Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise, American Capitalism Working Papers, AC/No.1/March 2016). Brahmin Capitalism thus suggests the possibilities for more productive interaction between economists and historians working on economic history.