[Book Review] Slavery’s Capitalism: A New History of American Economic Development
BA quick, valuable read, for teachers convinced that slavery comprises the entire foundation of the economic growth of the United States. This critical book review illustrates the impact of language in describing the role of slavery in the US economy when compared against the numbers themselves. This does not dismiss the conclusion that slavery is central to the growth of the United States, it does show how that truth is complex
“During the eighty years between the American Revolution and the Civil War, slavery was indispensable to the economic development of the United States”
impossibility of understanding the nation’s spectacular pattern of economic development without situating slavery front and center
“identifies slavery as the primary force driving key innovations in entrepreneurship, finance, accounting, management, and political economy,” “the originating catalyst for the Industrial Revolution and modern capitalism” (University of Pennsylvania Press web site).
The essential point is that the South was the wealthiest region in the nation when slave values are included, but the poorest when they are not.
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