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Reviews
The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism by Edward E. Baptist
jameslucpicante's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
sad
slow-paced
4.5
samarakroeger's review
challenging
dark
informative
reflective
sad
slow-paced
4.0
I found the link between slavery and the invention of credit (for banking) particularly fascinating. kinda dense and academic but a worthwhile read nonetheless!
unladylike's review against another edition
5.0
I believe this book was highly recommended somewhere in [b:How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America|55643287|How the Word Is Passed A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America|Clint Smith|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1603917194l/55643287._SY75_.jpg|86766325] by Clint Smith, which in turn I heard about from a great Scene on Radio podcast - Seeing White, I believe.
This is certainly one of those important books I'd need to read multiple times and take more notes or discuss it with someone with more scholarly background on economics. It's truly baffling how get-rich scams were basically the origin of the systems of credit and paper currency we have, and take for granted without much thought. Some of these stories and explanations reminded me of my attempts to learn about how cryptocurrency works. They're both made-up, involve assigning value to thin air and promises of being paid back, and seem just wacky to me compared to systems of barter. Bartering with humans as chattel slaves was essential for the economic growth of the United States. Slavery determined the ways we pay taxes, the systems we devised for political representation, and so much more that continues to fail us as people and prove that this country has never been half as "great" as its patriots and government like to claim.
This is certainly one of those important books I'd need to read multiple times and take more notes or discuss it with someone with more scholarly background on economics. It's truly baffling how get-rich scams were basically the origin of the systems of credit and paper currency we have, and take for granted without much thought. Some of these stories and explanations reminded me of my attempts to learn about how cryptocurrency works. They're both made-up, involve assigning value to thin air and promises of being paid back, and seem just wacky to me compared to systems of barter. Bartering with humans as chattel slaves was essential for the economic growth of the United States. Slavery determined the ways we pay taxes, the systems we devised for political representation, and so much more that continues to fail us as people and prove that this country has never been half as "great" as its patriots and government like to claim.
tigerkin310's review against another edition
5.0
Powerful, visually evocative, emotionally wrenching history. It's always been about money. Follow the money.
jimmacsyr's review against another edition
5.0
A very disturbing book. Author does a very nice job of taking slave memoirs/stories and weaving them into the chapters detailing the various aspects and influences of slavery. It puts western expansion in a very different light. The speculation/mortgaging of people, and then the "push" method for improving cotton yield, the impact on slave families, masculinity (black and white)... I learned a lot, and it opened up different perspectives on a number of topics.
larryerick's review against another edition
4.0
This book fills an important void for me in my attempt to fully understand black history in America, at least as fully as someone who is not black is capable of doing so. In this particular case, this author presents very detailed economic factors that drove America's use of slavery. Given my college minor in economics, I find it interesting it has taken me so long to get to this book. In any event, I must add it to my pantheon of essential recommended volumes: (1) Ibram X. Kendi's Stamped From the Beginning, for its study of racist thought, (2) this book, for its economic analysis at every level, (3) Douglas A. Blackmon's Slavery By Another Name, for its study of the transition from slavery to Jim Crow, (4) Danielle L. McGuire's At the Dark End of the Street, for its important study of gender differences between races and their lasting societal effects, and (5) Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow, for taking us from all that was in the past to where America is today. There are numerous other worthy works that offer important insights, but these are the ones that I feel dive the deepest and tackle the broadest strokes. So, why might anyone else read this book besides an economics student? First, it has a rather unique narrative style. Spaced throughout the book, the author takes the reader very intimately into my lives directly impacted by their enslavement in America. Many stories dug out of his research are every bit as personal and emotional as any scenes in the movie, "12 Years a Slave". Then, inevitably, the author draws the reader back up and out of those ground-level descriptions and relates for the reader the type of explanations that would be happening more broadly in the country. For instance, he relates a fairly complex economic situation in the 1830s that could easily have been matched with Michael Lewis' explanation of the Great Recession in his very insightful, The Big Short. (Not to be confused with the movie marketed as a comedy. At least I didn't find anything funny about the book or the Great Recession.) As the author relates, the mortgaging and repackaging of mortgages of the enslaved, accelerated and spread so far beyond prudent financial limits, that the system collapsed on itself, very much like house mortgages did in America not so long ago. The author doesn't always handle the transitions from intimate and personal to investigative journalism of the past very smoothly, especially in the beginning, but after enough groundwork is laid, the narrative in the book really starts to flow well. There are a number of interesting details revealed, such as the earlier version of the 1960s Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, but, in this case, which happened because powerful slave owners wanted to expand slavery by invading and taking over Cuba. Or, similarly, how, after the U.S. defeated Mexico in the 1840s, many slave owners wanted to take over all of Mexico for the same reason as they wanted Cuba, to have more land to expand slavery. However, the purest of the pro-slavery politicians could not tolerate seeing the power of a pure Caucasian-led nation tainted by the "nameless and mongrel breeds" that would become American citizens if Mexico was added to the U.S.A. (No, Trump isn't that old, so he didn't coin that phrase back then.) In the end, the dependency of the South on an ever expandable mortgaging of slaves reached its zenith in 1859. And just how devastating was it to the cotton industry to no longer be able to beat slaves into maximum efficiency in picking cotton? In the late 1850s, the better slaves picked well over 200 pounds of cotton per day. Some eighty years later, even with the help of significant research on finding plant varieties with more easily picked cotton bolls, the typical individual picker output -- free of the overseers whip -- could only muster about 100-120 pounds per day. An extra 100 pounds of cotton per picker per day must have made that whip a bargain purchase for most slave owners.
benlwill's review against another edition
5.0
This book is just exceptional in every way. It is rare to find an author who can write so knowledgeably about the many interweaving realities necessary to reconstruct history—but to find one who writes in beautiful prose is unheard of. Ed Baptist has made a remarkable contribution to the world with this book. Everyone should read it.
kwtingley's review
5.0
A powerful case for the direct impact of slavery on the growth of American capitalism and on those held captive in the "whipping machine" itself