It is not surprising that Professor Benjamin Waterhouse has made such a success of his career as a young historian. He remembers thinking historically as a child—whether it was about big ideas or daily life. “I always tried to make sense of things in terms of what came before,” Waterhouse reflected. This persistent intellectual curiosity brought him to his book, The Land of Enterprise: A Business History of the United States (Simon & Schuster, 2017). It is a synthesis of the major developments in business from the colonial period to the present that incorporates business into American history. Instead of looking at business and economics as additives to the standard narrative, Waterhouse sees them as integral to telling the American past. “Issues that are central to business and economic development are likewise central to that story,” Waterhouse said.
In his first book, Lobbying America: The Politics of Business From Nixon to NAFTA (Princeton University Press, 2013) as well, Waterhouse used business and economics to understand broader political and social themes in American history. Perhaps this is a product of the factors that led Waterhouse to the historical profession. He had planned on going to law school. However, a few months in France dissuaded him. “I guess the decision was basically made because there were just so many things I didn’t know.” He was enticed by academia not because he dreamed of being a professor, but because he couldn’t figure out any other way to spend time thinking about the ideas and issues that frustrated him. “Trying to do it on my own certainly wasn’t working,” Waterhouse said. “I just felt more and more confused.”
Upon arriving at Harvard for graduate school Waterhouse studied with Lizabeth Cohen and was interested in the work on conservatism Lisa McGirr had just published in Suburban Warriors. Initially he had considered doing a comparative history of social movements in France and the United States in the 1960s. However, as that project fell apart he turned to an examination of the Business Roundtable, a lobbying organization. This allowed him to get at the issues of conservatism and society that were at the heart of his intellectual preoccupations. And it allowed him to integrate historical questions about business with questions about labor, consumption, consumerism, politics, and people.
The Land of Enterprise is a trade press book aimed at a general audience. Waterhouse offers an accessible and compelling narrative that encourages readers to rethink the standard presentation of American history by placing business and economic development at the center of the story. “When we talk about national character or American ideas, there’s this element of free enterprise and entrepreneurship and innovation,” Waterhouse said. But, “when we tell the story of the nation’s history, it’s as though those economic forces disappear.” The Land of Enterprise provides a response by taking well-known historical events like the Civil War or the Iran Hostage crisis, and integrating business and economic development into the story.
Turning to the turbulent world of business, Waterhouse demonstrates how the pursuit of wealth and economic development is crucial to American history. Writing for a popular audience poses challenges, but more importantly it provides an important opportunity to engage with the public. As academics, Waterhouse said, “we make our understanding of the past more accurate by making it more complicated.” While this makes writing a synthetic survey challenging, it also enables historians to encourage more nuanced understandings of people and society. “My hope is that somebody reading this has a more expansive sense for what business is,” Waterhouse said, “so that nobody would say something as simple and silly as, “You know, “I’m against business,” or “I’m pro-business,” or “I’m anti-union,” or “I’m pro-free market.”” Waterhouse hopes that readers will come away understanding “that these are just empty categories.”
The Land of Enterprise is an important work that pushes back against the notion that business and economics operate in a separate sphere in American history or American public life. Waterhouse resists the notion that the state is an autonomous, separate “thing” that can either help or hurt the market. By confronting the complexity of the relationship between business, economics, politics and society, The Land of Enterprise presents an innovative interpretation of American history.
–Danielle Balderas