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The Half Has Never Been Told

Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism
Dec 28, 2014rpavlacic rated this title 4 out of 5 stars
This is a very depressing book but a necessary one. America would not be the superpower it is today if it were not for slavery, is the blunt thesis of the author. Simply stated, the extent to which capitalism and its tools was used to exploit the slave trade is breathtaking, as much as the multiple methods of torture used against slaves, is heartbreaking. A real surprise is how Barings Bank and the stock firm Lehman Brothers (among others) got their start, by financing the purchasing of slaves. When the enterprise got too expensive, many states simply defaulted on loans, leading to foreign states litigating for their money back for decades after. This book is also the most detailed account to date as to how the American Union broke up and got itself into the Civil War. Simply saying it was "slavery" doesn't do the issue justice. A lot had to do with legal immigration to the North, which made the three-fifths compromise a joke and led to the South being underrepresented in Congress - where the numbers now existed to change how a lot of other things were done in America. This should be required reading for high school students. For it offers an explanation why there will never be a reconciliation between black and white people in America - let alone the South against the rest of the country.