Vogl’s new book relates finance to the internet industry and economics to politics. Introducing questions of colonial history and racism would further sharpen his view of the drivers and dynamics of contemporary capitalism.

N.S.B. Gras, the father of Business History in the United States, argued that the era of mercantile capitalism was defined by the figure of the “sedentary merchant,” who managed his business from home, using correspondence and intermediaries, in contrast to the earlier “traveling...