CAPITALISM AND SLAVERY (PENGUIN MODERN CLASSICS)

Eric Williams's landmark 1944 study traces the rise and fall of the Atlantic slave trade through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and reveals the connection between capitalism and racism. Williams shows how the slave trade laid the foundations of the Industrial Revolution and how racism arose as a means of rationalising an economic decision. Most significantly, he showed how slavery was only abolished when it ceased to become financially viable, exploding the myth of emancipation as a mark of Britain's moral progress.