manogirl 's review for:

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

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I can't star-rate this book. It's overwhelming, and at times excruciatingly boring (listen, bank development in the early US is maybe a topic of interest for some people, but not this non-scholar), but it's an argument. It's clear what Baptist is going for, and I think he makes his point. Our economic system was built by slaves. It's a hideous fact, but it seems unavoidable. At least this book makes it seem so. (And lest you think, duh! Of course! No, actually not. Apparently scholars have made every effort to put slavery in a box separate from every other aspect of our early history WHICH MAKES NO SENSE but there you go.)