Universal History Annotation << Back Joyce Appleby’s Historical Views: Capitalism as a Cultural System Stukacheva Yu.Yu. The article is devoted to the analysis of the evolution of Joyce Appleby’s historical views on capitalism. It is shown that her approach shifted from interpreting capitalism primarily as an economic phenomenon to understanding it as a cultural system that shapes norms of behavior and patterns of thought. The study is based on a comparative analysis of Appleby’s key works written at different stages of her academic career and is placed within the historiographical context of American historical scholarship in the second half of the twentieth century. The article shows that her early works focus on the emergence of commercial rationality in seventeenth-century England, a critique of traditional interpretations of mercantilism, and the social and intellectual consequences of early capitalism. In her later writings, capitalism is presented as a culturally embedded system associated with Enlightenment ideas, individual liberty and political liberalism. Special attention is given to the influence of the new cultural history, postmodern debates, and interdisciplinary shifts in American historiography, all of which contributed to the expansion of Appleby’s analytical methods. Keywords: Joyce Appleby, capitalism, cultural system, American historiography, new cultural history, postmodernism. DOI: 10.25791/vseist.02.2026.1253 Pp. 58-63.