Sven Beckert, Laird Bell Professor of American History at Harvard  University. Professor Beckert's research and teaching focus on the history of the United States in the nineteenth century, with a particular emphasis on the history of capitalism, including its economic, social, political and transnational dimensions. His publications have focused on the nineteenth-century American bourgeoisie, on labor, on democracy and, in recent years, on the global history of capitalism. Beckert teaches courses on the history of American capitalism, Gilded Age America, the political economy of modern capitalism, labor history and global capitalism. Beckert is co-chair of theProgram on the Study of Capitalism at Harvard University. Beyond Harvard, he co-chairs an international study group on global history,  is co-editor of a series of books at Princeton University Press on “America in the World,” has co-organized a series of conferences on the history of capitalism, and is a 2011 Guggenheim Fellow.