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The Half Has Never Been Told

Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism
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 of slavery and how it was an engine that drove the expansion of American capitalism and territory. It's a provocative and compelling thesis, but it gets muddle in Baptist's erratic writing and lack of focus. He goes off on tangents about subjects like African-Americans contribution to music and using to learn both hands, as well as overwhelming readers with vast loads of facts, the arcana of 19th century economic policy, and the machinations of Southern politicians in the Senate. Perhaps this book was meant more for scholars and fellow historians, rather than for the general reader. It is an important book on a subject plenty of Americans would be happy to forget or ignore, but it was disappointing as both a narrative and as a challenge to conventional ideas of slavery.