I'm reading Thomas Piketty's 'Brief History of Equality' at the moment - highly recommended.
If you're on the left it probably won't change your basic oveview of economic history, but it will equip you with a hell of a lot more carefully documented evidence to back your views.
So far, I'd pick out a couple of fascinating points.
First, the processes of enclosure and colonisation at the inception of capitalism were not just forced land-grabs, but ideological changes in the meaning of 'ownership'. Ownership is a set of rights over land, things - and people - that are defined in convention, law, etc - and that change over time. Enclosure wasn't just putting up fences on land previously owned - it was a change in the meaning of ownership, from the rights and obligations of feudalism to the 'absolute title' (lack of obligations) of capitalism. And crucially, Piketty points out, the struggle over this understanding of ownership - what rights and obligations are socially legitimate - continues, for example in limitations on landlords' power to set rent, evict, etc...
A second fascinating point relates to the connection between European dominance and capitalism. It's often assumed that although slavery and colonialism were necessary to fund the investment behind the industrial revolution, giving Europe its head start and hence dominant position, the parallel development of capitalism also contributed to this. However, applying Adam Smith's contemporary description of an effective capitalist economy, Piketty finds that in fact both Chinese and Ottoman societies were more 'capitalist' at the inception of the industrial revolution. So what really made the difference? Centuries of European wars - more command-and-control establishments, bigger navies, better weaponry, etc - in short: force, and the ability/willingness of Europeans to use it. Or to put that another way - Adam Smith glossed over the role of force in making capitalism work.
