I think this book is an incredibly important read and I highly recommend it. Not only does Baptist tell an incredibly important history here, he also exposes the gaps left in the histories we’re taught in the United States. I think histories like this should be well incorporated into the histories we teach in schools and yet I found so much information in this book that I knew little to nothing about. The book is still an incredibly important history and tells a story that we often like to ignore. I find it incredibly difficult to read about just how cruel people can be–and how it can be endorsed by the majority of an entire nation, my nation. Ultimately, Baptist explores slavery as the foundation of the United States economy and how it is inseparable from the history of the nation as a whole. The book explores the expansion of slavery and its relation to other historical events, like the slave revolution in Haiti that precipitated the Louisiana Purchase and expansion of slavery westward in North America. The chapters are broken down by time period and Baptist incorporates narratives from the lives of slaves into the historical facts of the past. Baptist is a history of slavery spanning from pre-Revolution America to the Civil War. The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism by Edward E.
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