THE HALF HAS NEVER BEEN TOLD

Book Details

• Author: Edward E. Baptist

• Publisher: Basic Books

• Language: English

• Edition: Reprint

• ISBN: 9780465002962

• Pages: 522

• Cover: Paperback

• Dimensions: 9.2 x 5.9 x 1.6 inches

About the Book

The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism offers a groundbreaking and essential history of America's economic rise, revealing the true role that slavery played in shaping the nation’s capitalist system. Historian Edward E. Baptist challenges conventional views that divorce slavery from the later successes of the United States, emphasizing how the expansion of slavery directly contributed to the nation's economic and industrial development.

Spanning the first eight decades after American independence, the book shows how the South transformed from a small coastal region with aging tobacco plantations into a vast cotton empire, and how this expansion fueled the growth of the United States into a modern capitalist economy. Baptist provides a radical new interpretation of American history by exploring the connections between slavery and the economic development of the country.

Through intimate slave narratives, plantation records, and accounts from newspapers, politicians, entrepreneurs, and escaped slaves, the book paints a vivid picture of how slavery impacted not just the Southern economy but also the entire nation. This essential work provides a stark and profound look at the legacy of slavery, revealing that its expansion was not just an isolated chapter in American history, but a driving force behind the nation's economic transformation.

The book has garnered significant recognition, making it to the Bloomberg View Top Ten Nonfiction Books of 2014, the Daily Beast's Best Nonfiction Books of 2014, and winning prestigious prizes including the 2015 Avery O. Craven Prize and the Sidney Hillman Prize.

The Half Has Never Been Told is a must-read for anyone interested in understanding the true roots of American capitalism and the profound impact of slavery on the nation's development.