Americana

Why it’s on the list: Bhu Srinivasan’s 400-year history of American capitalism, told one industry at a time — tobacco, cotton, steam, oil, rail, film, aviation, finance, the internet — from the Mayflower as a venture-backed voyage forward. The structure is the point: each chapter is a business, not a presidency.

Where I heard about it

• Replies to @typesfast — named in the replies to his question “What’s the best history book you’ve read?”, June 2025. The full list from that thread lives on What’s the best history book… (tweet).

Connections

• What’s the best history book… (tweet) — the thread this came out of; the full recovered list lives there.
• Capitalism · Economic History — the subject.