This talk combines two elements of my historical thinking and research. First, I lay out an argument about the history of capitalism and Asian history that I have developed for a forthcoming historiography essay. I shall try to delineate what the category “capitalism” has meant for historians throughout the twentieth century, both in its original European contexts and in the specific fields of east and south Asian history, concluding with some propositions about the place of Asia within future generations of such research. From here I transition, secondly, into some speculative thoughts on my current research project on: the history of Hong Kong’s postwar industry; its patterns of employment and capital accumulation; its relationship to both mainland China and the east Asia region; and how these collective phenomena may unsettle and revise our understanding of capitalism’s history and the late twentieth century more broadly.