Capitalism and Slavery Audiobook By Eric Williams cover art

Capitalism and Slavery

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Capitalism and Slavery

By: Eric Williams
Narrated by: Bill Andrew Quinn
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Arguing that the slave trade was at the heart of Britain's economic progress, Eric Williams' 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 18th and 19th 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.

©2022 Eric Williams (P)2022 Penguin Audio Economic History Economics Europe Great Britain Capitalism England Imperialism Africa

Critic reviews

"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)

"Its thesis is a starting point for a new generation of scholarship." (New Yorker)
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Capitalism and Slavery ties together the story of European development and its reliance on enslavement of Africans. It’s updating Adam Smith and giving background to Milton Friedman and Walter Rodney.

A True History of the Modern World

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The main thesis of the book is that the capital generated by slavery in the Caribbean (West Indies) during the 17th century was a pre-requisite for the Industrial Revolution of the 18th century in Britain. The book is quite detailed, however, the statistical data are not presented as in modern books (graphically), but rather as a list of numbers: volume of production, imports, etc. This may be ok for a book but not for an audiobook: one the numbers have been said I have already forgotten them, and since the author assumes that just by presenting the numbers there is not much more explanation to be given, it is sometimes difficult to follow the argument.
This said, the book provides interesting insights and deserved to be read (in paper form).

Interesting

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