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by: Eric Williams  List Price: $22.95 Amazon.com's Price: $17.95 You Save: $5.00 (22%)Prices subject to change. Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Binding: PaperbackDewey Decimal Number: 338.0941 EAN: 9780807844885 ISBN: 0807844888 Label: The University of North Carolina Press Manufacturer: The University of North Carolina Press Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 307 Publication Date: October 14, 1994 Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press Studio: The University of North Carolina Press Related Items:
Browse for similar items by category: Click to Display Editorial Review: Product Description: Slavery helped finance the Industrial Revolution in England. Plantation owners, shipbuilders, and merchants connected with the slave trade accumulated vast fortunes that established banks and heavy industry in Europe and expanded the reach of capitalism worldwide. Eric Williams advanced these powerful ideas in Capitalism and Slavery, published in 1944. Years ahead of its time, his profound critique became the foundation for studies of imperialism and economic development. Binding an economic view of history with strong moral argument, Williams's study of the role of slavery in financing the Industrial Revolution refuted traditional ideas of economic and moral progress and firmly established the centrality of the African slave trade in European economic development. He also showed that mature industrial capitalism in turn helped destroy the slave system. Establishing the exploitation of commercial capitalism and its link to racial attitudes, Williams employed a historicist vision that set the tone for future studies. In a new introduction, Colin Palmer assesses the lasting impact of Williams's groundbreaking work and analyzes the heated scholarly debates it generated when it first appeared. Average Rating:
 Rating:  - Capitalism and Slavery is definitely food for the brain.This is a very, very excellent piece of work. I read and studied this book when I was a teenager in high school in Trinidad. At that time I was required to study the book as part of our Caribbean History syllabus. That was over 13 years ago. So as an adult I decided to purchase the book and appreciate the information. And boy this was the best decision I ever made. I recommend people of all races and backgrounds to read this book. As the first Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago Dr. Eric Williams ... Read More Rating:  - Capitalism and SlaveryThe basic theory underlying Eric Williams's Capitalism and Slavery is that slavery in the colonies, particularly the West Indies so far as this analysis is concerned, brought about capitalism, and thereby led to its own decline. The first five chapters of the book explain the nature of British economics prior to the American Revolution. Synthesizing information rather than expressing his own view, Williams discusses triangular trade among England, the African coast, and the slave ... Read More Rating: - A wonderful thesis withstanding the tests of timeI recently read this book for graduate school and highly recommend it. This book was written in 1940 and while critics have been able to pick at a few details within the book, noone has every successfully disproven his entire thesis - that the rise of industrial capitalism would not have been possible without the existence profits derived from slavery and the slave trade. Williams does a splended job of illustrating how slavery influenced all facets of the triangular trade, which in turn shaped Britian ... Read More Rating: - Misunderstanding of Islamic slaveryThe last two reviewers who seemed to criticize Williams for not discussing other forms of slavery miss the point. Williams was not engaged in some sort of West bashing but attempted to explain the significance of slavery in the development of the Caribbean. Insofar as Islam is concerned, the reviewers once again miss the essential point. Rather than investigate what Islam actually says about slavery they go with a knee-jerk assumption. Here is what Kecia Ali has written about slavery in Islamic society: ... Read More Rating: - Caribbean HistoryAlthough there may be complainants about Dr. Williams not addressing certain forms of slavery throughout history it has to be kept in mind that his thesis was about the hows and whys of African enslavement in the Caribbean. Williams firmly argues and details how today's culture of racism and capitalism was born. This book is extremely well done and a great beginner for anyone interested in the topic of Caribbean history. 
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