The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism

Abstract

Nationalist histories of the US downplay the role of slavery in the development of the world’s capitalist superpower. Obscuring slavery, these mythologies present US hegemony as a fact innocent of origins in the extraction of wealth from enslaved people. Building on historical evidence accumulated by African-American survivors of slavery, plus scholarship on African American and other elements of the African diaspora, The Half Has Never Been Told offers a historical narrative that focuses on slavery’s central role in US history. Placing enslaved people’s experiences and exploitation at the center of the story, the book endeavors to show how the extraction of wealth from enslaved African Americans has shaped the US and modern capitalism itself.