Slavery and Capitalism

"Brilliant ... advances our understanding of the North-South divergence and the origins of the Civil War [and] our understanding of American economic thought and intellectual history in general."

Reidy has produced one of the most thoughtful treatments to date of a critical moment in southern history, placing the social transformation of the South in the context of 'the age of capital' and the changes in the markets, ideologies, etc. of the Atlantic world system. Better than anyone perhaps, Reidy has elaborated both the large and small narratives of this development, connecting global forces with the initiatives and reactions of ordinary southerners, black and white.

Winner of the 2015 Avery O. Craven Prize from the Organization of American Historians Winner of the 2015 Sidney Hillman Prize A groundbreaking history demonstrating that America's economic supremacy was built on the backs of slaves Americans tend to cast slavery as a pre-modern institution -- the nation's original sin, perhaps, but isolated in time and divorced from America's later success. But to do so robs the millions who suffered in bondage of their full legacy. As historian Edward E. Baptist reveals in The Half Has Never Been Told, the expansion of slavery in the first eight decades after American independence drove the evolution and modernization of the United States. In the span of a single lifetime, the South grew from a narrow coastal strip of worn-out tobacco plantations to a continental cotton empire, and the United States grew into a modern, industrial, and capitalist economy. Told through intimate slave narratives, plantation records, newspapers, and the words of politicians, entrepreneurs, and escaped slaves, The Half Has Never Been Told offers a radical new interpretation of American history.

In Reckoning with Slavery Jennifer L. Morgan draws on the lived experiences of enslaved African women in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to reveal the contours of early modern notions of trade, race, and commodification in the Black Atlantic. From capture to transport to sale to childbirth, these women were demographically counted as commodities during the Middle Passage, vulnerable to rape, separated from their kin at slave markets, and subject to laws that enslaved their children upon birth. In this way, they were central to the binding of reproductive labor with kinship, racial hierarchy, and the economics of slavery. Throughout this groundbreaking study, Morgan demonstrates that the development of Western notions of value and race occurred simultaneously. In so doing, she illustrates how racial capitalism denied the enslaved their kinship and affective ties while simultaneously relying on kinship to reproduce and enforce slavery through enslaved female bodies.

The second and concluding volume of Professor Ashworth's study of American antebellum politics, this book offers an exciting new interpretation of the origins of the Civil War. The volume deals with the politics of the 1850s and with the plunge into civil war. Professor Ashworth offers a new way of understanding the conflict between North and South and shows how northern free labor increasingly came into conflict with southern slavery as a result of both changes in the northern economy and the structural weaknesses of slavery.

During the nineteenth century, the United States entered the ranks of the world's most advanced and dynamic economies. At the same time, the nation sustained an expansive and brutal system of human bondage. This was no mere coincidence. Slavery's Capitalism argues for slavery's centrality to the emergence of American capitalism in the decades between the Revolution and the Civil War. According to editors Sven Beckert and Seth Rockman, the issue is not whether slavery itself was or was not capitalist but, rather, the impossibility of understanding the nation's spectacular pattern of economic development without situating slavery front and center. American capitalism--renowned for its celebration of market competition, private property, and the self-made man--has its origins in an American slavery predicated on the abhorrent notion that human beings could be legally owned and compelled to work under force of violence. Drawing on the expertise of sixteen scholars who are at the forefront of rewriting the history of American economic development, Slavery's Capitalism identifies slavery as the primary force driving key innovations in entrepreneurship, finance, accounting, management, and political economy that are too often attributed to the so-called free market. Approaching the study of slavery as the originating catalyst for the Industrial Revolution and modern capitalism casts new light on American credit markets, practices of offshore investment, and understandings of human capital. Rather than seeing slavery as outside the institutional structures of capitalism, the essayists recover slavery's importance to the American economic past and prompt enduring questions about the relationship of market freedom to human freedom. Contributors: Edward E. Baptist, Sven Beckert, Daina Ramey Berry, Kathryn Boodry, Alfred L. Brophy, Stephen Chambers, Eric Kimball, John Majewski, Bonnie Martin, Seth Rockman, Daniel B. Rood, Caitlin Rosenthal, Joshua D. Rothman, Calvin Schermerhorn, Andrew Shankman, Craig Steven Wilder.

This set covers 125 iconic primary documents from the 1600s to the present. Each entry offers the full text of the document as well as an in-depth, analytical essay that places the document in its historical context. Among the sources included in the set are important legislative documents such as the Reconstruction era amendments; critical Supreme Court decisions; and iconic speeches and writings by leaders such as Sojourner Truth, Booker T. Washington, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Barack Obama.

Milestone Documents is a new series combining full-text primary source documents with engaging, readable analysis. Plus free online access to the full content of this great reference set is available.""Exploring the Primary Sources That Shaped America"" launches the Schlager Group's ""Milestone Documents"". This series brings primary source documents and insightful analysis to Salem's history offerings. The series is also a key part of Salem History, the new online database available free to purchasers of the print edition.Primary source documents have always occupied a central role in the study of history. Most existing reference sources, however, treat these documents as an afterthought. This new series - the focus of a new imprint by the Schlager Group, and available exclusively through Salem Press - fills the gap by offering students and researchers in-depth, analytical essays illuminating famous primary source documents from U.S. and world history.The first publication in this remarkable series is ""Milestone Documents in American History: Exploring the Primary Sources That Shaped America"". This fully illustrated, four-volume series will treat more than 130 iconic documents from the Revolutionary era to the twenty-first century.""Milestone Documents in American History"" offers an innovative approach to historical reference. Each entry includes the full text of the document in question as well as an in-depth, analytical essay that places the document in its historical context. With content aligned to the National History Standards and signed essays written by a team of nearly 100 esteemed historians, ""Milestone Documents in American History"" offers an unparalleled reference tool for students conducting primary source research.Among the documents included in the set are Revolutionary era standards such as Patrick Henry's ""Liberty or Death"" speech, the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution. Important presidential sources include Thomas Jefferson's first inaugural address, Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, John F. Kennedy's 1963 address on integration, and George W. Bush's address on September 11, 2001. Influential decisions of the Supreme Court are also included, from Brown v. Board of Education to Bush v. Gore. Critical documents related to minority rights are also present: Andrew Jackson's message ""On Indian Removal,"" the Seneca Falls Declaration, Martin Luther King, Jr.'s ""I Have a Dream"" speech, and the Equal Rights Amendment.Special features include a general subject index, an index by category, and hundreds of photographs and other images. In addition, history educators will find eight detailed and useful teacher's guides containing dozens of student activities.