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Slavery's Capitalism: A New History of American Economic Development by Seth Rockman, Sven Beckert
kerrygibbons's review
3.0
This set of VERY loosely connected essays is kind of hit or miss. Some were very enlightening like the one about slave suicide and homicide extending the slave’s commodity-based life beyond the grave, the entries about merchant vessels transporting spaces within and without the United States, and the coverage of slaves by insurance. Some, like the one on Catholic inequality (?) in the colonies and early US, though, only grazed against either of the supposed subjects of the collection: capitalism and slavery.
mishasbooknook's review
4.0
This is a great collection of essays examining the ways slavery was not merely a regional phenomena with no economic impact. In fact, I would say the selected authors do an excellent job articulating the different ways slavery as an institution in the United States had profound importance for American Economic, Technological, Financial, and Law histories. Even further still, several points are made that show how slavery in the United States was hugely important for international markets, as well. I would say that this is an excellent collection of scholarship, but it’s really written with other scholars in mind - it is not necessarily accessible to the average layperson.
colin_cox's review
5.0
Far too often, binaries define our understanding of American history. The Revolutionary War, for example, was a bloody conflict between Monarchical, imperial sympathizers and freedom-fighting agitators. The American Civil War was an even bloodier fight between Unionists and Confederates, North and South, slave abolitionists and slave masters. In the case of the American Civil War, this kind of binary thinking obscures the interconnected counters of 19th-century American culture and economy. We must, as many German idealists argued in the late 18th and early 19th century, think dialectically, which is to say, we must eschew binaries. This is what Slavery's Capitalism does.
Slavery's Capitalism is a robust suite of essays that explore the complexity and relationality of 18th and 19th-century American economics. Simply put, the boundary between North and South blurs when we reckon with how Northern bankers, investors, and merchants accumulated wealth and power through exploitative Southern slave labor, even if they did so indirectly. Furthermore, Slavery's Capitalism blurs the boundaries between national and international economies. The exploitative contours of Southern chattel slavery extended beyond the United States; merchants, for example, in Great Britain profited from inexpensive, slave-produced cotton.
Understanding slavery's effects in these terms teach us how interconnected we are. As Slavery's Capitalism argues, we cannot vilify Southern slave masters solely because they put whips to the backs of the enslaved; they did so, in part, because there was a market for the commodities enslaved people produced.
Slavery's Capitalism is a robust suite of essays that explore the complexity and relationality of 18th and 19th-century American economics. Simply put, the boundary between North and South blurs when we reckon with how Northern bankers, investors, and merchants accumulated wealth and power through exploitative Southern slave labor, even if they did so indirectly. Furthermore, Slavery's Capitalism blurs the boundaries between national and international economies. The exploitative contours of Southern chattel slavery extended beyond the United States; merchants, for example, in Great Britain profited from inexpensive, slave-produced cotton.
Understanding slavery's effects in these terms teach us how interconnected we are. As Slavery's Capitalism argues, we cannot vilify Southern slave masters solely because they put whips to the backs of the enslaved; they did so, in part, because there was a market for the commodities enslaved people produced.
stevia333k's review
dark
informative
medium-paced
5.0
Very very helpful. Towards the end there's a lot of focus on how the welfare of kids got affected & that helped a lot. Specifically I combine chapter 13 by brophy with the post civil war section of "they were her property" about transracial adoptions of black kids, basically to articulate that child abuse is the systemic bias & goal in order to keep positionality stable.
jarreloliveira's review
5.0
"And one would find that there was not an individual in the whole country whose opinion is not in the greater or less degree acted upon by an influence which was set in motion by a Southern bribe.
When economic times were good, the committee continued, the wealth produced by slavery was the common plunder of the country. Northern merchants, northern mechanics, and manufacturers; northern editors, publishers, and printers; Northern hotels, stages, steamboats, railroads, canal boats; northern banks, northern schoolmasters, northern artists, northern colleges, and northern ministers of the gospel all get their share of emolument from this general robbery of the enslaved."
Slavery's Capitalism, Sven Beckert & Seth Rockman
When economic times were good, the committee continued, the wealth produced by slavery was the common plunder of the country. Northern merchants, northern mechanics, and manufacturers; northern editors, publishers, and printers; Northern hotels, stages, steamboats, railroads, canal boats; northern banks, northern schoolmasters, northern artists, northern colleges, and northern ministers of the gospel all get their share of emolument from this general robbery of the enslaved."
Slavery's Capitalism, Sven Beckert & Seth Rockman