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Comments (14)

The Half Has Never Been Told

Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism
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1 to 14 of 14 items
May 13, 2022earlosatrun rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
Don't normally read an entire history book in one go. This one is worth the read.
Nov 27, 2019patcarstensen rated this title 4.5 out of 5 stars
The analysis of how the understanding of "American values" diverged between the North and the Deep South, a divergence that was at the root of the Civil War, is important. I agree that the writing style is not infrequently annoying. The…
Jun 01, 2018Violet_Cat_136 rated this title 4.5 out of 5 stars
One of the largest reasons why I appreciated this book was because of Baptist's dedication to keeping a steadfast and contained narration. Much of history is written arrogantly, that is to say, it is written in a way that aligns the…
Sep 24, 2017tirjan rated this title 2 out of 5 stars
Too deep for me. I appreciate the scholarly effort to produce such a book but don't intend to labor through it.
Jun 21, 2017
This is a big book (420 pages) but well worth the effort. The book's two main premises are that slavery was a critical component of the development of capitalism in the United States and indeed the western world (the author is not the…
michelle_mcgrath
Oct 10, 2016michelle_mcgrath rated this title 4 out of 5 stars
The writing style detracts from the issues this book investigates. The author has strangely chosen to intermingle individuals' stories in the middle of a discussion of facts. The graphs and charts are not user friendly, the factual…
Jan 27, 2016
Edward Baptist pays close attention to slavery as a powerful and evolving barbarism that increasingly sucked the economy, geographical expansion, and politics of the United States within its singular project. The Jacksonian geopolitical…
Jan 04, 2016popsreader rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
I discovered this book on the shelf at the Whitney Plantation slave museum in Wallace, LA. It was recommended by the guide, to me, and I recommend it to everyone interested in understanding the origins and legacy of slavery. It is…
Ham625
Mar 18, 2015Ham625 rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
Powerful, depressing, important reading. The book can make you cry but there are also some similarities to labor, wealth and our world today. A most valuable book.
Jan 11, 2015don_muhr rated this title 4 out of 5 stars
Great book, but a very depressing one. Any argument against reparations is destroyed by the content in this book. In 1820 1/3 of all U.S. wealth was just in U.S. human slave capital, slaves. That doesn't include the wealth that was…
Dec 31, 2014lukasevansherman rated this title 3 out of 5 stars
"The Northern economy's industrial sector was built on the back's of enslaved people." I was eager to read Edward E. Baptist's new history of slavery, which interweaves personal narratives with an overarching examination of the economics…
Dec 28, 2014rpavlacic rated this title 4 out of 5 stars
This is a very depressing book but a necessary one. America would not be the superpower it is today if it were not for slavery, is the blunt thesis of the author. Simply stated, the extent to which capitalism and its tools was used to…
Nov 08, 2014voisjoe1_0 rated this title 4.5 out of 5 stars
A few astonishing facts - 1) Slavery was so imbedded in the American economy that 12 of the first 16 presidential elections were won by slaveholders (some presidents owning over 200 slaves). 2) In 1860, 7 of the 8 per capita wealthiest…
voisjoe1
Sep 14, 2014
This month, the conservative UK magazine, The Economist, decided to expunge a review of this book on their web-site (a very rare event). The magazine review has been widely criticized because it said that the book's assertion that…