BIBFRAME Work

Title

Slavery and capitalism

Type

  • Text
  • Monograph

Contribution

Subject

  • Marxian historiography (LCSH)
  • Plantations--History (LCSH)
  • Slavery--Economic aspects (LCSH)
  • Slave labor--History (LCSH)

Language

Classification

Content

Supplementary content

Summary

"Karl Marx's writings on enslavement and labor have fallen out of favor among historians, but David McNally injects new life into them. Slavery and Capitalism gives the first systematic Marxist account of the capitalist character of Atlantic slavery-using colonial travel literature, planter records and diaries, and slave narratives-to support the provocative claim for enslaved labor in the plantation system as capitalist commodity production. Weaving together history, political economy, and radical abolitionism, McNally demonstrates that plantation slaves formed a modern working class. Unlike those scholars who insist that enslaved people were too sensible to set their sights on liberty, he highlights the self-activity of enslaved people fighting for their freedom and reframes their resistance as labor struggles over production and reproduction, with significant implications for US and Atlantic history and for understanding the roots of racial capitalism"-- Provided by publisher.

Table of Contents

Introduction: whisperings of freedom -- Planting and profit : Richard Ligon and the Birth of capitalist slavery -- George Washington : Land Grabber, Slave Hunter, Bourgeois Planter -- "Without a servant to make his bed" : labor and race in colonial capitalism -- Living labor and planter profits -- The wages of slavery -- Steal away: capital on legs -- Bonded proletarians -- Life-making and enslaved reproduction -- Cultures of freedom -- Empires of capital, worlds of revolt -- Concluding thoughts : ghostly hauntings, dreams of freedom.

Authorized Access Point

McNally, David, 1953-. Slavery and capitalism

Admin Metadata

  • Date: 2026-09-11T20:16:42.620165+00:00
  • Agent: cbc
  • Status: c
  • Derived from: 24094944

Admin Metadata

  • Date: 2026-09-11
  • Cataloger id: Unknown
  • Description level: http://id.loc.gov/ontologies/bibframe-2-6-0/
  • Description language: eng
  • Description authentication: pcc

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