These digressions reveal more about slavery, but they don’t really advance the theme. Having read the book, this feels very obvious to me now. Moreover, he echoes the call of black intellectuals like me for a re-examination of the language associated with the trade. Just a moment while we sign you in to your Goodreads account. The westward expansion bought opportunities to entrepreneurs in human traffic. In “The Half Has Never Been Told” Edward E. Baptist explores the engines of American economic growth during the first half of 19th century, and the consequences that growth had on American slavery and its victims. The content of the first 20-30 pages gave the impression that the book had been mistitled. (e.g. Baptist has a knack for explaining complex financial matters in lucid prose. I am about the business of educating myself more fully about slavery and race in America, from the antebellum period through Jim Crow and up to modern racial theory. Search for other works by this author on: © 2015 American Historical Association. The information about The Half Has Never Been Told shown above was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's online-magazine that keeps our members abreast of notable and high-profile books publishing in the coming weeks. Presumably to avoid sounding academic, he sprinkles the text with anachronistic colloquialisms (“the president was all in” is how he describes Franklin Pierce’s embrace of the Kansas-Nebraska bill in 1854) and with telegraphic sentences more appropriate for Twitter. And it is difficult to justify a rating of less than five stars, even though I have some issues with the book. If I had read it, I probably wouldn't have bought it. Haitians had opened 1804 by announcing their grand experiment of a society whose basis for citizenship was literally the renunciation of white privilege, but their revolution’s success had at the same time delivered the Mississippi Valley to a new empire of slavery. If the various elements of “The Half Has Never Been Told” are not entirely pulled together, its underlying argument is persuasive: Slavery was essential to American development and, indeed, to the violent construction of the capitalist world in which we live. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of, Published I think I've always known what most people know. Reflects excellent scholar and solid advocacy, Reviewed in the United States on June 28, 2018. There was recently a huge controversy regarding a review of this book - the review - by The Economist - was very dismissive of slavery which prompted an article. Edward Baptist makes several strong arguments, some of which turn conventional wisdom on its head.

They question a) the premise that slavery was the primary driver of the industrial revolution rather than a failing antiquated economic model, and b) that torture was the primary driver of productivity gains by slaves in the cotton fields. There comes a point in every historical field when you can start to talk about over-saturation. 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. But where Brown's speculative approach was criticised, Baptist is forensic in his evidence. Baptist, who teaches at Cornell University, is the author of a well-­regarded study of slavery in Florida. It also analyzes reviews to verify trustworthiness. Reviewed in the United States on August 10, 2015. Almost one million slaves, Baptist estimates, were transported to the cotton fields from the Upper South in the decades before the Civil War. Authors put forth dramatic claims to new conclusions, topics, and evidence. Amazing book, especially because I read it just after finishing the also brilliant Hemingses of Monticello. But the book disappointed me on a couple of fronts. My family was military, so we were first generation Floridians with no southern heritage, and thankfully my mom has always been a very open-minded, intelligent, and fair person who, I like to think, passed on those traits to me.

As the railroad opened new areas to cultivation and cotton output soared, slave owners saw themselves as a modern, successful part of the world capitalist economy. Why sacrifice so many lives in war to fight a system that was on the verge of crashing? But given it’s starting point, the book does end on a higher note (even though it does mention Jim Crow). But the texts I've been reading are revelatory, beginning with James Baldwin's The Fire Next Time. Here's Why, WSJ Opinion: Twitter’s Partisan Censorship Over NY Post's Biden Exclusive, Beirut Explosion: WSJ Reporter Relives the Moment in His Shattered Home, Nikola’s Stock Fizzles After Hype-Fueled Summer; Here’s Why, News Corp is a network of leading companies in the worlds of diversified media, news, education, and information services. Reviewed in the United States on June 9, 2019. Slaves on the east coast were routinely sold further west to supply planters in the booming cotton growing economy in new territories like Alabama, Missouri and new cotton fields away from the coasts. And we still celebrating Columbus...?