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Capital and Race
The History of a Modern Hydra
Sylvie Laurent (Author)
9781509571901, Polity Press
Hardback, published 10 April 2026
336 pages
23.1 x 15.8 x 3.6 cm, 0.635 kg
"One of the most important books ever written on racial capitalism. A wonderful book. A must read." "An invaluable text. Laurent deftly shows that the construction of race and racism was always a political and economic project that served two interrelated purposes: the justification of oppression and dispossession, on the one hand, and control over the labor and produce of the oppressed, on the other."
Thomas Piketty
"Clarity and ambition rarely come together so seamlessly. Sylvia Laurent delivers a sweeping history of the last five centuries that will be compelling for both experts and newcomers."
Quinn Slobodian, Boston University
Bill Fletcher Jr, The Nation
1492: a year that captivated the world. Columbus's "discovery" of a new continent is widely remembered for revealing both the wonders of the earth and the unprecedented capacity of men to free themselves from boundaries. But the invention of America was actually a story untold: the consecration of a new relationship between nature and mankind, which saw capital and race unite irrevocably.
Sylvie Laurent tells the story of racial capitalism as a "two-headed creature" forged by figures such as Daniel Defoe in Robinson Crusoe, Voltaire, Adam Smith, and Alexis de Tocqueville. Beneath these authors' fantasies of a free-market land of endless riches is the empire of racial capitalism. However powerful, this system has been identified and resisted by a long line of anti-colonial theorists, from Rosa Luxemburg to W. E. B. Du Bois. Against the backdrop of their thinking, and at a time when it is commonplace to oppose class struggles and racial demands, Laurent illuminates the rich and little-known intellectual tradition of overcoming the divide. It's about time, she argues, that Karl Marx and Martin Luther King Jr. get to talk to one another.
Capital and Race: The History of a Modern Hydra is a timely and gripping intellectual history that will be of interest to historians and general readers alike.
I INTRODUCTION
Reuniting Marx and Martin Luther King
II BOOK ONE – Origins
Chapter 1 - The Birth of America and the Dawn of Capitalist Modernity
Chapter 2 - The Origin of Racial Views
III BOOK TWO – Institutions
Chapter 3 - The Plantation
Chapter 4 - The Academy
Chapter 5 - The Multinationals
Chapter 6 - The Colonial Contract
IV BOOK THREE - Narratives
Chapter 7 - Robinson Crusoe, a Parable of Racial Capitalism
Chapter 8 - Emancipation through Trade
V BOOK FOUR - Praxis
Chapter 9 - The Civilizing Mission of Capitalism
Chapter 10 - The Rehabilitation of Imperialism
Chapter 11 - The Fundamental Structures of Racial Capitalism
VI EPILOGUE - Territories
Notes
Index
Subject Areas: Economics [KC]
