Mircea Raianu

I am a historian of capitalism and economic life broadly construed, with training and regional expertise in modern South Asia, modern Britain, and the British Empire.

My current book project, tentatively entitled Giving Away the Company: Global Experiments with Common Ownership under Capitalism, explores the creation of alternative forms of corporate organization through transnational exchanges of ideas and legal techniques from the late 1920s to the early 1980s. It centers on the Scott Bader Commonwealth, a British chemicals company converted by its founder into a worker-owned enterprise, drawing in part on the Gandhian concept of “trusteeship.” Other case studies include cooperatives, foundations, worker takeovers, and employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs), mainly in the United States and Western Europe (Italy, France, and Spain). Separately, I am working on a smaller project about the origins and evolution of “intermediate technology” from development critique to discourses of jugaad, innovation, and sustainability.

My first book, Tata: The Global Corporation that Built Indian Capitalism (Harvard University Press, 2021), focused on India’s largest and most influential business group from the mid-19th to the late 20thc. It showed how private capital played a key role in the construction of the national economy, alternately acting in concert with and in opposition to the state. In parallel, I published a series of related journal articles and edited volume chapters on urban history, economic thought, and artistic production.

At Maryland, I teach courses on the history of global capitalism, South Asia, and the Indian Ocean world. I am also affiliated with the Ed Snider Center for Enterprise and Markets at the Robert H. Smith School of Business.

Note to prospective graduate students: I am eager to advise MA theses and serve on PhD committees in any of my areas of specialization. I am not currently accepting PhD students for direct supervision.