Economic Aspect of the Abolition of the West Indian Slave Trade and Slavery (eBook)

Eric Williams (Autor)

Dale W. Tomich (Herausgeber)

eBook Download: EPUB

2014
278 Seiten
Rowman & Littlefield Publishers (Verlag)
978-1-4422-3140-5 (ISBN)

Infos

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 the influential and widely debated Capitalism and Slavery, published in 1944 and based on his previously unavailable dissertation, now available in book form for the first time. Williams’s profound critique became the foundation for studies of imperialism and economic development. Establishing the exploitation of commercial capitalism and its link to racial attitudes, Williams employed a historicist vision that has set the tone for an entire field. The significant differences between his two works allows us to reconsider questions that have lost none of their urgency; indeed, whose importance has increased.

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In his influential and widely debated Capitalism and Slavery, Eric Williams examined the relation of capitalism and slavery in the British West Indies. Binding an economic view of history with strong moral argument, his 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 has set the tone for an entire field. Williams's profound critique became the foundation for studies of imperialism and economic development and has been widely debated since the book's initial publication in 1944. The Economic Aspect of the Abolition of the West Indian Slave Trade and Slavery now makes available in book form for the first time his dissertation, on which Capitalism and Slavery was based. The significant differences between his two works allow us to rethink questions that were considered resolved and to develop fresh problems and hypotheses. It offers the possibility of a much deeper reconsideration of issues that have lost none of their urgency-indeed, whose importance has increased.

Autor

Eric Williams was the most prominent intellectual from the English-speaking Caribbean in the twentieth century. He was a leader of West Indian independence and the prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago from 1955 to 1981. His groundbreaking book, Capitalism and Slavery, was first published in 1944 and most recently reissued in 1994. Dale W. Tomich is professor of sociology and history at Binghamton University, State University of New York, and deputy director of the Fernand Braudel Center. William Darity Jr. is Arts and Sciences Professor of Public Policy, African and African American Studies, and Economics at Duke University.

Inhalt

PrefaceDale TomichIntroduction: From the Dissertation to Capitalism and Slavery: Did Williams's Abolition Thesis Change?William Darity Jr. The Economic Aspect of the Abolition of the West Indian Slave Trade and SlaveryEric WilliamsIntroductionPart IChapter 1: The Impolicy of the Slave SystemChapter 2: The Superiority of the French West IndiesChapter 3: East India SugarChapter 4: The Attempt to Secure an International AbolitionChapter 5: The West Indian ExpeditionsChapter 6: The Significance of the West Indian ExpeditionsChapter 7: The Abolition of the Slave TradePart IIChapter 8: The Abolitionists and EmancipationChapter 9: The Foreign Slave TradeChapter 10: East India SugarChapter 11: The Distressed AreasChapter 12: The Industrialists and EmancipationEpilogueAppendix I: "The Influential Men"Appendix II: Ramsay as an AuthorityAppendix III: The Intercolonial Slave TradeBibliography

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 7.2.2014
• Reihe/Serie: World Social Change
• Einführung: William Darity
• Zusatzinfo: 22 Illustrations including: - 2 Black & White Illustrations; - 20 Tables.
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Geschichte ► Allgemeine Geschichte ► Neuzeit (bis 1918)
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte
• Themenwelt: Geschichte ► Teilgebiete der Geschichte ► Wirtschaftsgeschichte
• Themenwelt: Naturwissenschaften
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie ► Spezielle Soziologien
• Schlagworte: Caribbean Studies • Latin American Studies
• ISBN-10: 1-4422-3140-8 / 1442231408
• ISBN-13: 978-1-4422-3140-5 / 9781442231405