A review by michael_kelleher
The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism by Edward E. Baptist

4.0

I don’t think you can read this book and buy into the “civil war was more about state rights vs. federal power” or the idea that “a majority of slave owners were ‘good masters’” ideas that have been peddled (recalling some of my college classes here.) On the one hand it fills me with hope that legal slavery was defeated. On the other hand I’m overwhelmed with shame and anger over the beginnings of this country and how it was built on stolen years, lifetimes, bodies of African slaves. You can’t read this without being shocked at the depths of evil that existed here and being very sensitive to how that evil still exists here.

I think the part that surprised me most was this: I have always thought that Slavery was a southern problem. That the north righteously and persistently opposes slavery until it was abolished. Yet, the financial ties to the north, the cataloging in this book, of how northern mills also benefitted from millions of years of stolen labor, and were therefore also able to prosper.... it makes you realize why it did take SO LONG to abolish slavery. Money. Money is why. 😞