The Half Has Never Been Told

Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism

Datos Bibliográficos

ID4157546
AutoresDaina Ramey Berry (autor de correspondencia)
Año2016
Volumen103
Número3
Páginas718-719
Fecha de publicación2016-12-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaJournal of American History (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0021-8723 • E-ISSN: 1945-2314
EditorialOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/jahist/jaw341
OpenAlexW2733304437
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas33

In The Half Has Never Been Told the historian Edward E. Baptist vividly describes the ways enslaved people shaped the development of modern capitalism. He asserts that their exploitation in the cotton fields, through violent force, enabled the United States to prosper, expand, and become a world leader in cotton production. Baptist anchors his study in the eighty-year period between the end of the American Revolution and the beginning of the Civil War, tracing the experience of enslaved people through trade, travel, separation, labor, and violence. The vast body of scholarship on slavery has noticeably shifted in the last two decades, and the institution of slavery now has a prominent place in national conversations about U.S. history. Baptist's The Half Has Never Been Told arrives within this watershed moment in the historiography, as a plethora of slavery studies have prompted new understandings of an old institution. Baptist's work also appears at a time when films, television shows, and documentaries are introducing an increasingly wider audience to this history

Capitalism · Economic history · Economics · Political science · Politics · History · Law · Race, History, and American Society