IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/jeclit/v55y2017i2p637-43.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Review of The Business of Slavery and the Rise of American Capitalism, 1815-1860 by Calvin Schermerhorn and The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism by Edward E. Baptist

Author

Listed:
  • Stanley L. Engerman

Abstract

The two books being reviewed are concerned with the importance of slavery in the antebellum US South for the economic development of the Northern states. One (Schermerhorn) deals primarily with Southern financial arrangements facilitating the sales of slaves and cotton. The other (Baptist) presents a broader picture of masters' treatment of slaves, as well as how the incomes of slaveowners spurred the demand for Northern industrial production. The review argues that both books overstate the importance of slavery and cotton production for US economic growth.

Suggested Citation

  • Stanley L. Engerman, 2017. "Review of The Business of Slavery and the Rise of American Capitalism, 1815-1860 by Calvin Schermerhorn and The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism by Edward E. Bap," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 55(2), pages 637-643, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:jeclit:v:55:y:2017:i:2:p:637-43
    Note: DOI: 10.1257/jel.20151334
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/jel.20151334
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/attachments?retrieve=xVrFb4bNof4Y_b5EHZBKhsL0-ILuNblZ
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Phillip W. Magness & Art Carden & Ilia Murtazashvili, 2023. "Gordon Tullock and the economics of slavery," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 197(1), pages 185-199, October.
    2. Rhode, Paul W., 2024. "What fraction of antebellum US national product did the enslaved produce?," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    3. Gavin Wright, 2022. "Slavery and the Rise of the Nineteenth-Century American Economy," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 36(2), pages 123-148, Spring.
    4. Hans L. Eicholz, 2022. "Werner Sombart’s Ghost: The Geist That Haunts the New Histories of Capitalism," Journal of Private Enterprise, The Association of Private Enterprise Education, vol. 37(Fall 2022), pages 39-60.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
    • N11 - Economic History - - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations - - - U.S.; Canada: Pre-1913
    • N31 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy - - - U.S.; Canada: Pre-1913
    • N51 - Economic History - - Agriculture, Natural Resources, Environment and Extractive Industries - - - U.S.; Canada: Pre-1913
    • P16 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Capitalist Economies - - - Capitalist Institutions; Welfare State

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aea:jeclit:v:55:y:2017:i:2:p:637-43. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.