The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism

Event Details

Television Broadcast: February 1, 2015
EDWARD E. BAPTIST is an associate professor of history at Cornell University.  His new book, The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism, explores how the expansion of slavery in the first eight decades after American independence drove the evolution and modernization of the United States. Told through intimate slave narratives, plantation records, newspapers, and the words of politicians, entrepreneurs, and escaped slaves, The Half Has Never Been Told offers a radical new interpretation of American history. Baptist is also the author of the award-winning book Creating an Old South: Middle Florida's Plantation Frontier before the Civil War.