Thank you to the many friends and colleagues who have supported this work over its long journey, and to the team at @princetonupress.bsky.social, who made the book and brought it to the world.
24.06.2025 05:50 — 👍 1 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
Private Finance, Public Power
The strange and contested evolution of the management of banking risk
Today is the official pub. date for @petercontibrown.bsky.social and my book, Private Finance, Public Power: A History of Bank Supervision in America.
We did not anticipate that it would drop at a moment when so much in supervision is up for grabs.
press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...
24.06.2025 05:33 — 👍 25 🔁 6 💬 2 📌 1
If you want to understand what @jeremykress.bsky.social is so worked up about, our book Private Finance, Public Power is out today!
press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...
24.06.2025 05:30 — 👍 4 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
It's called supervisory discretion, Jeremy!
24.06.2025 05:28 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Proud of my two students, @petercontibrown and @seanvanatta.bsky.social on their fantastic new book, Private Finance, Public Power. @princetonupress.bsky.social
19.06.2025 20:27 — 👍 19 🔁 4 💬 0 📌 0
That magic moment when your research comes full circle. Charge it!
19.06.2025 12:16 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Classic bring your bagpipes to work day here in Glasgow.
18.06.2025 08:06 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
That's a wrap on The Past and Future of Bank Supervision @brookings.edu . Thanks to Aaron Klein for organising and hosting a great event!
10.06.2025 19:08 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Peter Conti-Brown and Sean Vanatta on the History of Bank Supervision in America
Peter Conti-Brown is a historian and legal scholar of the Federal Reserve System, and an associate professor at the
Super fun show this week with @seanvanatta.bsky.social and @petercontibrown.bsky.social on their new history of bank supervision in the United States. We also cover the recent SCOTUS case on POTUS removing Fed governors, powerlifting, and more! www.mercatus.org/macro-musing... (1/n)
09.06.2025 15:00 — 👍 7 🔁 3 💬 1 📌 0
Unfortunately, Illinois did not adopt the pension laws commission's recomendations, and has continued to be a poster child for disastrous unsound pension plans.
03.06.2025 15:12 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Started writing the next book today. Off to a good start:
“The laws of the various states for pensions of public employes have been enacted with almost utter disregard for the disastrous experiences contained in the history of unsound pension plans.”
Illinois Pension Laws Commission, 1919
03.06.2025 15:12 — 👍 4 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
Private Finance, Public Power, real and in the flesh! Can't wait until this starts shipping out.
Get yours at press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...
26.05.2025 18:31 — 👍 34 🔁 8 💬 0 📌 0
Glasgow, Taps-Aff or Taps-Oan?
I do love this country. It's Braw.
www.taps-aff.co.uk
17.05.2025 12:15 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
📢 Call for Applications: 𝐇𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐲 𝐊𝐚𝐮𝐟𝐦𝐚𝐧 𝐅𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐇𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐲 𝐃𝐢𝐬𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐅𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐰𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐩𝐬
hagley.org businesshistory.bsky.social historians.bsky.social #skystorians
🗓️ Application deadline: November 1 2025
thebhc.org/dissertation...
#FinancialHistory
15.05.2025 10:02 — 👍 2 🔁 4 💬 0 📌 0
Consumers Show Signs of Strain Amid Trump's Tariff Rollout
Consumer spending has been the bulwark against recession. A pullback could slow the economy.
“'The U.S. consumer never lets us down,' John Williams, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York."
This, with the graph of credit card delinquencies, is the entire post-New Deal US political economy.
www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
16.05.2025 05:14 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Could they redirect those investments toward public infrastructure in a turn to US-style fiscal mutualism (an investment strategy from the midcentury era of conservative nostalgia)?
I'm...not hopeful...
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
13.05.2025 08:28 — 👍 0 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
YouTube video by Business History Conference
Xaq Frohlich & Sean Vanatta -- Book talk #bizhis #books
If you missed the American Society for Legal History Virtual Book Club last week, you can watch here the recording of @seanvanatta.bsky.social and me discussing our two books: www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEYe....
Compliments of the @businesshistoryc.bsky.social .
#businesshistory
24.04.2025 21:40 — 👍 4 🔁 4 💬 0 📌 0
Enjoyed the launch event for @seanvanatta.bsky.social’s Plastic Capitalism, a new history of how credit cards transformed finance and unmoored New Deal America.
22.04.2025 17:04 — 👍 8 🔁 3 💬 0 📌 0
Want to see how informing consumers evolved as a regulatory strategy across credit and food? Join @comedoergosum.bsky.social next week!
09.04.2025 16:07 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Join me and @seanvanatta.bsky.social online a week from today for our talk about both our books and intersections between legal history and business history, part of the American Society for Legal History Virtual Book Club, co-hosted with @businesshistoryc.bsky.social : aslh.net/virtual-book...
09.04.2025 14:38 — 👍 8 🔁 2 💬 1 📌 1
US Treasuries sell-off deepens as ‘safe haven’ status challenged
Investors say misfiring ‘basis trades’ are piling pressure on US government bond market
"You Maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!"
US Treasuries sell-off deepens as ‘safe haven’ status challenged - on.ft.com/3FXNnTK via @FT
09.04.2025 13:26 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
This conference looks very cool: Money and Humanities!
21.03.2025 19:52 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Heathrow is currently on fire.
21.03.2025 09:36 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
Book Review: Plastic Capitalism: Banks, Credit Cards, and the End of Financial Control
Plastic Capitalism reviewed by Vern McKinley via the Cato Institute. Unsurprisingly, we disagree about the relative merits of financial regulation (while, I suspect, agreeing on the relative demerits of Citi).
@yalebooks.bsky.social @uofgsocsci.bsky.social
www.cato.org/regulation/s...
21.03.2025 06:35 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
"Drawing on extensive and impressive archival research, Vanatta explains in a highly accessible manner how this industry has shaped the economic development of the United States in the last 50 years."
17.03.2025 13:00 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
The Gomory prize committee wrote: "Sean Vanatta’s Plastic Capitalism offers a careful and much needed history of the development of the American credit card industry. Combining business and legal history, Vanatta shows how business decisions were made against a backdrop of government regulation...
17.03.2025 13:00 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
Author of #Economica: A Global History of Women, Wealth & Power. Resident economic historian on BBC Radio 4 #UnderstandTheEconomy. Fellow of the Royal Historical Society & RSA.
Writer, historian, associate professor of geography. Author Bankers and Empire: How Wall Street Colonized the Caribbean. Working on histories of Pan-Africanism and racial capitalism.
https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/B/bo26032761.html
Historian of risk, uncertainty, insurance, astrology.
Senior Research Fellow at the Mercatus Center || Podcast Host at http://macromusings.libsyn.com || Former U.S. Treasury Economist || Micah 6:8
Historian of globalisation, capitalism and economic cultures | Professor at The University of Manchester | Director of the Centre for Economic Cultures
📚 Racial discrimination & school finance, education history, US South
🏫 MCF/ Associate prof of US history, University of Versailles
🖋️ Working on 'Plunder: A History of Racism & School Finance in the US South' with UNC Press
💻 https://esthercyna.com
Triple accredited Business School.
We create enlightened, engaged and entrepreneurial graduates who make a positive impact on culture and society.
#TeamUofG
We are proud to showcase world-changing social sciences research from across our 5 Schools #TeamUofG
Welcome to the School of Social & Political Sciences at the University of Glasgow. Through teaching and research, we're tackling the key social and political challenges of our time. Join #TeamUofG | https://www.gla.ac.uk/schools/socialpolitical/
Comms Manager for the University of Glasgow's College of Social Sciences. Fuelled by ☕️
#Sociology Ph.D. candidate @UofT | Studying social monies. Dissertation on the financialization of national pensions in the U.S., Canada, and South Korea.
https://joonsikkim.com/
Assistant Professor at Maastricht University
History, European Integration, Business, Cold War, Poland
https://www.maastrichtuniversity.nl/ak-komornicka
Assistant Professor of Contemporary History
UniDistance Suisse
Co-editor in chief of Entreprises et histoire
Political History of Capitalism, Multinationals, Environmental Regulations
Views are my own
Zentrum für Ökonomische und Soziologische Studien (ZÖSS) / Universität Hamburg
Economics Professor, New School for Social Research; Emeritus Professor of Economics & Finance, Monmouth University; contributor to Washington Spectator; former editor, Review of Political Economy; author/editor of many books, including 50 Major Economists
Historian of cities and capitalism || Author of YUPPIES: WALL ST AND THE REMAKING OF NY (@harvardpress.bsky.social, 2026) II Co-host of Who Makes Cents: A History of Capitalism Podcast
Cross-disciplinary social & behavioral science research & fellowship in service of generating knowledge, illuminating understandings, building fields, informing policy discourse, & creating an enduring scholarly community like no other | casbs.stanford.edu
Sociologist of inequality, policy, economics, neurodivergence, and mental health. Northern England-raised, US Ivy trained, and currently auto-exile in Aotearoa (New Zealand). Neurospicy mama.
Historian of women, gender, capitalism, credit, and cities at Notre Dame.
