British Capitalism and Caribbean Slavery
The Legacy of Eric Williams

These essays explore the relationship between Great Britain and her plantation slave colonies in the Caribbean.

Barbara Lewis Solow (Author), Stanley L. Engerman (Author)

9780521533201, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 8 July 2004

356 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 2 cm, 0.549 kg

Modern scholarship on the relationship between British capitalism and Caribbean slavery has been profoundly influenced by Eric Williams's 1944 classic, Capitalism and Slavery. The present volume represents the proceedings of a conference on Caribbean Slavery and British Capitalism convened in his honour in 1984, and includes essays on Dr Williams's scholarly work and influence. These essays, by thirteen scholars from the United States, England, Africa, Canada and the Caribbean, explore the relationship between Great Britain and her plantation slave colonies in the Caribbean.

Preface
1. British capitalism and Caribbean slavery: the legacy of Eric Williams: an introduction Barbara L. Solow and Stanley L. Engerman
Part I. Slavery as an Economic Phenomenon: 2. Race and slavery: considerations on the Williams Thesis William A. Green
Part II. Caribbean Slavery and the Industrial Revolution: 3. Capitalism and slavery in the exceedingly long run Barbara L. Solow
4. Slavery and the development of industrial capitalism in England Joseph E. Inikori
5. The slave trade, sugar, and British economic growth, 1748–1776 David Richardson
Part III. The Decline of the British West Indies: 6. The American Revolution and the British West Indies' economy Selwyn H. H. Carrington
7. 'Dreadful Idlers' in the cane fields: the slave labor pattern on a Jamaican sugar estate, 1762–1831 Richard S. Dunn
Part IV. The Basis of Abolition and Emancipation: 8. Paradigms tossed: capitalism and the political sources of abolition Seymour Drescher
9. Capitalism, abolitionism, and hegemony David Brion Davis
10. Eric Williams and abolition: the birth of a new orthodoxy Howard Temperley
11. What and who to whom and what: the significance of slave resistance Michael Craton
Part V. Capitalism and Slavery in Historical Perspective: 12. Capitalism and slavery on the Islands: a lesson from the mainland Gavin Wright
13. 'The Williams Effect': Eric Williams's Capitalism and Slavery and the growth of West Indian political economy Hilary McD. Beckles
14. Eric Williams and Capitalism and Slavery: a biographical and historiographical essay Richard B. Sheridan.

Subject Areas: Political structure & processes [JPH]