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2022-02-06
I've started reading Sven Beckert's "Empire of Cotton" (2014).
It is a history of the emergence of distinctively capitalist social relations, the ensuing industrial revolution in England, and the role played by chattel slavery in the Americas in making this revolution possible.
It's clear to me that Beckert departs from Brenner on the distinctive factors leading to an industrial revolution in Britain at the end of the nineteenth century, but I'll have to revisit Brenner before I can sketch this out.
Yesterday, I visited Second Story Books in Rockville and was lucky to find a copy of "Capitalism and Slavery" by Eric Williams, a classic on this subject. I was surprised to learn from the back cover that he was the Prime Minister of Trinidad!