Capitalism's Sexual History

Smith identifies a gap in scholarship on political economy: queer theory has not heretofore contributed to analysis of global political and economic relations. Smith offers her analysis as remediation, with fruitful results. * S. P. Duffy, CHOICE *
Capitalism's Sexual History is an important book that makes visible the relationship between economy and sexuality. Smith does this by centering her analysis on the commercial sex sector, examining how sex work matters in the interwoven histories of the rise of capitalism and the emergence of a modern sexual and moral order centred on the institution of marriage...Smith makes compelling arguments for scholars to better recognise the work that sexuality does in the reproduction of markets. This, then, is a vital contribution, one that through its engagements with both queer theory and social reproduction scholarship forges important new directions for the study of International Political Economy. A well-written, brilliantly assembled, must-read book! * Juanita Elias, University of Warwick *
Capitalism's Sexual History writes back into the field of international political economy untold stories about bodies as work spaces--indeed, about their centrality in the forging of capitalist social relations. By zooming onto England--through its ascendancy and decline--as the motherboard of global capitalism, Nicola Smith excavates the role that sex work played in the construction of dichotomies instrumental to capitalism's reproduction: states/markets, public/private, economy/sexuality. This is a book that must be read by all IPE scholars who understand that the way to transform the world we live in is always predicated upon the way we interpret and re-interpret history. * Aida A. Hozić, University of Florida *
This is a stunning book! I have been waiting for Capitalism's Sexual History for a long time--rich in analysis and creative imagination, it focuses upon the most important issues of today ( the relationship between economics and sexual practices) through the lens of critical sexual histories (Foucault and Frederici) towards sexual justice. A tour de force! * Maggie O'Neill, University College Cork, Ireland *
A pathbreaking and paradigm shifting contribution. In this remarkable book, Smith features Foucault and Federici in conversation to provide an original, convincing, and consequential account of how capitalism is not separate from sexuality but produces, depends on, and profits from sustaining this dualism. The pressing implication is that more adequate and actionable analyses of social injustice are foreclosed as long as feminist work is ignored, critiques of capitalism exclude sexuality, and queer theories neglect political economy. Read it and rethink how labor, and whose labor, is valued. * V. Spike Peterson, University of Arizona *
In this path-breaking book, Smith details how the normalizing regime of sexuality--including ideas about sex as (non-)work--is produced by and productive of the politico-economic order. Her historically grounded analysis charts the establishment of public/private, sexuality/economy, and other dualisms, and sheds new light on the production and governance of 'the family' as a site for the reproduction of labour power. In so doing, she shows just how essential queer political economy is for understanding global capitalism * Adrienne Roberts, The University of Manchester *
A tour de force. Curating Foucault, Federici, and Freud into a singular framework, Nicola Smith reveals how imbricated sexuality and capitalism from the nineteenth to twenty-first centuries are. Through the lens of the commercial sex sector in England, we see how the story of capitalism is literally written on women's bodies. * Jacqui True, Monash University *