The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism

But to do so robs the millions who suffered in bondage of their full legacy. As historian Edward E. 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. Craven Prize from the Organization of American HistoriansWinner of the 2015 Sidney Hillman PrizeBloomberg View Top Ten Nonfiction Books of 2014Daily Beast Best Nonfiction Books of 2014. 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.Winner of the 2015 Avery O. 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. Americans tend to cast slavery as a p

Baptist has a knack for explaining complex financial matters in lucid prose. Baptist writes with verve and a good eye for the dramatic.”New York Times Book ReviewBaptist's work is a valuable addition to the growing literature on slavery and American development. Baptist takes passionate issue with such assumptions. The Half Has Never Been Told's underlying argument is persuasive.”Vikas Bajaj, New York TimesNew books like Empire of Cotton and The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism by Edward Baptist offer gripping and more nuanced stories of economic history.”Los Angeles TimesThe overwhelming power of the stories that Baptist recounts, and

cheesedoodle said Gripping and haunting. This is a five-star book for me not because, as the mouseover bubble read, "I love it!" but because it opened my eyes and because it haunts me. Baptist does a brilliant job at revealing the societally sociopathic links between "driving GDP" and "boosting individual productivity" through creative, innovative cruelty. The whole W. "he echoes the call of black intellectuals like me for a re-examination of the language associated with" according to Michelle Lamb Discher. Baptist's work is significant if only because he carefully and dispassionately details the intricacies of the economic slave trade vis a vis the industries (including cotton) it made possible, the ubiquity of physical and sexual abuse and exploitation, the systematic and deliberate destruction of family, language and community.. Anne Mills said The "Peculiar Institution" At the Center of Our History. This is a "must read" book for anyone who is interested in American history, which means anyone who is seriously interested in American politics. Baptist argues that slavery was at the center of the early expansion of the American economy, using both careful research and moving narratives of individual slaves.Most writing about