A reading list on the history of slavery
The discovery of gold and silver in America, the extirpation, enslavement and entombment in mines of the aboriginal population, the beginning of the conquest and looting of the East Indies, the turning of Africa into a warren for the commercial hunting of black-skins, signalised the rosy dawn of the era of capitalist production….
With the development of capitalist production during the manufacturing period, the public opinion of Europe had lost the last remnant of shame and conscience. The nations bragged cynically of every infamy that served them as a means to capitalistic accumulation…. Liverpool waxed fat on the slave trade. This was its method of primitive accumulation…. Liverpool employed in the slave-trade, in 1730, 15 ships; in 1751, 53; in 1760, 74; in 1770, 96; and in 1792, 132.
In fact, the veiled slavery of the wage workers in Europe needed, for its pedestal, slavery pure and simple in the new world.
If money, according to Augier, “comes into the world with a congenital blood-stain on one cheek,” capital comes dripping from head to foot, from every pore, with blood and dirt.
--Karl Marx, Capital, Volume 1 (1867)
Hello everyone!
For those interested, we've put together a reading list of some books that deal with some of the issues we cover in The Whitewashing of Slavery, Part 2: Propaganda, Racism & the War on History. Whenever possible, we have linked to PDF or other free online versions of books. Otherwise, links are to Amazon. If you have other suggestions, please let us know! We'd love to hear from you.
On Rome, Slavery, and Race
The Ancient Economy, Moses Finley (1973)
Slavery and Society at Rome, Keith Bradley (1994)
Blacks in Antiquity: Ethiopians in the Greco-Roman Experience, Frank Snowden, Jr. (1970)
Before Color Prejudice, Frank Snowden, Jr. (1983)
Roman slave collar from 4th-century AD. Reads: "I have run away. Seize me. If you return me to my master Zoninus, you will receive a solidus [gold coin]."
On Arab Slavery
Slavery in the Arab World, Murray Gordon (1989)
On Viking slavery, especially of the Slavic peoples
Thraldom: A History of Slavery in the Viking Age, Stefan Brink (2021)
Viking-era slave shackles.
On Slavery in Western Africa
Afonso I Mvemba a Nzinga, King of Kongo: His Life and Correspondence, John K. Thornton (2023)
On the Atlantic Slave Trade
The Slave Trade: The Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade: 1440 - 1870, Hugh Thomas (1999)
Map of the African slave trade, 1500-1900, published by UN.
Early Slave Narrative:
On the Taino people
The Tainos: Rise and Decline of the People Who Greeted Columbus, Irving Rouse (1992)
On Brazil vs. the US regarding racial oppression
Neither Black Nor White: Slavery and Race Relations in Brazil and the United States, Carl Degler (1971)
On Black oppression and the caste system in the US
Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, Isabel Wilkerson (2020)
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, Michelle Alexander (2010)
Deep South: A Social Anthropological Study of Caste and Class, Allison Davis, Burleigh B. Gardner, and Mary R. Gardner (1941; reissued in 2022 with a new foreword by Isabel Wilkerson)
Clips referenced in this episode
Candace Owens/Prager U: "A Short History of Slavery"
PragerU for Kids: "Christopher Columbus: Explorer of the New World"
A readings list on American slavery
