Christian O. Christiansen, “Progressive Business: An Intellectual History of the Role of Business in American Society” (Oxford UP, 2015)

In Conversation: An OUP Podcast · Mar 4, 2016 · 1h 1m

Christian Olaf Christiansen is an associate professor in the history of ideas at Aarhus University, Denmark. His book Progressive Business: An Intellectual History of the Role of Business in American Society (Oxford University Press, 2015) offers a compelling history of the idea of a gentler capitalism, or of the “soulful” self-regulating corporation, that can flourish economically while doing social good. The idea of “market reformism” against a pure laissez-faire has been an important concept in three distinct periods of U.S. history. In the late nineteenth century, the nation experienced…