laylajohnston 's review for:

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

5.0

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Author Baptist magnificently writes a thorough history of the political economy of slavery and the means by which labor extracted from the enslaved created the wealth of the Western economy. Baptist's choice in language was highly effective, as well as his use of the imagery of the body as a means to narrate and analyze the history African American enslavement. Do you think of plantations when you think of the American South? Try using slave labor camp rather than plantation for a more accurate phrase. Rather than refer to people as 'slaves' Baptist uses 'the enslaved' to more accurately describe their life and humanity. Oh, and did you know the enslaved could be mortgaged, those mortgages bundled, then sold oversees to speculators in the same fashion as the shenanigans that caused the housing bubble to burst in the 2000s? I didn't either, until I read this fascinating work. Highly recommended.