Slavery's capitalism : a new history of American economic development

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Where to find it

Davis Library (5th floor)

Call Number
E441 .S53 2016
Status
Checked Out (Due 4/3/2024)

Law Library — 3rd Floor Collection (3rd floor)

Call Number
E441 .S538 2016
Status
Available

Law Library — Special Collections (1st floor)

Call Number
E441 .S538 2016 c. 2
Status
In-Library Use Only

Authors, etc.

Names:

Summary

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.

Contents

  • Introduction. Slavery's Capitalism p. 1 Sven Beckert and Seth Rockman
  • Part I Plantation Technologies p. 29
  • Chapter 1 Toward a Political Economy of Slave Labor: Hands, Whipping-Machines, and Modern Power p. 31 Edward E. Baptist
  • Chapter 2 Slavery's Scientific Management: Masters and Managers p. 62 Cartlin Kosentnai
  • Chapter 3 An International Harvest: The Second Slavery, the Virginia-Brazil Connection, and the Development of the McCormick Reaper p. 87 Daniel B. Rood
  • Part II Slavery and Finance p. 105
  • Chapter 4 Neighbor-to-Neighbor Capitalism: Local Credit Networks and the Mortgaging of Slaves p. 107 Bonnie Martin
  • Chapter 5 The Contours of Cotton Capitalism: Speculation, Slavery, and Economic Panic in Mississippi, 1832-1841 p. 122 Joshua D. Rothman
  • Chapter 6 "Broad is de Road dat Leads ter Death": Human Capital and Enslaved Mortality p. 146 Daina Ramey Berry
  • Chapter 7 August Belmont and the World the Slaves Made p. 163 Kathryn Boodry
  • Part III Networks of Interest and the North p. 179
  • Chapter 8 "What have we to do with slavery?" New Englanders and the Slave Economies of the West Indies p. 181 Eric Kimball
  • Chapter 9 "No country but their counting-houses": The U.S.-Cuba-Baltic Circuit, 1809-1812 p. 195 Stephen Chambers
  • Chapter 10 The Coastwise Slave Trade and a Mercantile Community of Interest p. 209 Calvin Schermerhorn
  • Part IV National Institutions and Natural Boundaries p. 225
  • Chapter 11 War and Priests: Catholic Colleges and Slavery in the Age of Revolution p. 227 Craig Steven Wilder
  • Chapter 12 Capitalism, Slavery, and the New Epoch: Mathew Carey's p. 243 Andrew Shankman
  • Chapter 13 The Market, Utility, and Slavery in Southern Legal Thought p. 262 Alfred L. Brophy
  • Chapter 14 Why Did Northerners Oppose the Expansion of Slavery? Economic Development and Education in the Limestone South p. 277 John Majewski
  • Notes p. 299
  • Contributors p. 385
  • Index p. 389
  • Acknowledgments p. 405

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