Capitalism and Slavery - Eric Williams

Brand: Penguin Classics | Status: Còn hàng

360.000₫

"This book is based on the Oxford DPhil dissertation by the author (who eventually went on to become independent Trinidad and Tobago's first Prime Minister) and was originally published in 1944 in America. Relevant today, as much as it was then, challenging the historical inaccuracies about the what and why of the slave trade, government policy being controlled by a few wealthy individuals and how inconsistencies remained in Britain's attitude to slavery after 1834. An essential read for anyone who wishes a better understanding of how commercial interests played the paramount role in the slave trade, and how, by application to our present state, continue to do so." - Amazon Customer Reviews

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''It''s often said that books are compulsory reading, but this book really is compulsory. You cannot understand slavery, or British Empire, without it'' Sathnam Sanghera

Arguing that the slave trade was at the heart of Britain''s economic progress, Eric Williams''s landmark 1944 study revealed the connections between capitalism and racism, and has influenced generations of historians ever since.

Williams traces the rise and fall of the Atlantic slave trade through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to show how it laid the foundations of the Industrial Revolution, and how racism arose as a means of rationalising an economic decision. Most significantly, he showed how slavery was only abolished when it ceased to become financially viable, exploding the myth of emancipation as a mark of Britain''s moral progress.

''Its thesis is a starting point for a new generation of scholarship'' New Yorker