Histories of Racial Capitalism
Published on 9. February 2021
Book
Paperback/Softback
288 pages
978-0-231-19075-6 (ISBN)
Description
The relationship between race and capitalism is one of the most enduring and controversial historical debates. The concept of racial capitalism offers a way out of this impasse. Racial capitalism is not simply a permutation, phase, or stage in the larger history of capitalism-since the beginning of the Atlantic slave trade and the colonization of the Americas, capitalism, in both material and ideological senses, has been racial, deriving social and economic value from racial classification and stratification. Although Cedric J. Robinson popularized the term, racial capitalism has remained undertheorized for nearly four decades.
Histories of Racial Capitalism brings together for the first time distinguished and rising scholars to consider the utility of the concept across historical settings. These scholars offer dynamic accounts of the relationship between social relations of exploitation and the racial terms through which they were organized, justified, and contested. Deploying an eclectic array of methods, their works range from indigenous mortgage foreclosures to the legacies of Atlantic-world maroons, from imperial expansion in the continental United States and beyond to the racial politics of municipal debt in the New South, from the ethical complexities of Latinx banking to the postcolonial dilemmas of extraction in the Caribbean. Throughout, the contributors consider and challenge how some claims about the history and nature of capitalism are universalized while others remain marginalized. By theorizing and testing the concept of racial capitalism in different historical circumstances, this book shows its analytical and political power for today's scholars and activists.
Histories of Racial Capitalism brings together for the first time distinguished and rising scholars to consider the utility of the concept across historical settings. These scholars offer dynamic accounts of the relationship between social relations of exploitation and the racial terms through which they were organized, justified, and contested. Deploying an eclectic array of methods, their works range from indigenous mortgage foreclosures to the legacies of Atlantic-world maroons, from imperial expansion in the continental United States and beyond to the racial politics of municipal debt in the New South, from the ethical complexities of Latinx banking to the postcolonial dilemmas of extraction in the Caribbean. Throughout, the contributors consider and challenge how some claims about the history and nature of capitalism are universalized while others remain marginalized. By theorizing and testing the concept of racial capitalism in different historical circumstances, this book shows its analytical and political power for today's scholars and activists.
Reviews / Votes
Jenkins and Leroy have amassed an erudite and rigorous collection of essays that flesh out the meaning of racial capitalism in ways that are surprising and illuminating, and will extend a desperately needed debate. -- Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, author of <i>Race for Profit: How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership</i> Beginning with the 'old history of capitalism'-the century-long discussion about empire and revolution in the Black radical tradition-this collection builds on that legacy. One by one, these learned and brilliant essays stretch and refine the meanings of racial capitalism, transforming and deepening our understanding of the histories they take up, and providing essential historical context and analytical clarity as we face the current crisis. -- Walter Johnson, author of <i>The Broken Heart of America: St. Louis and the Violent History of the United States</i> Eschewing the notion of a universal capitalism under which racial capitalism is a variant, Histories of Racial Capitalism is an edifying analysis of the racial and racializing character of capitalism and capital. Deft in its engagement with gender, bondage, debt, empire, and indigeneity, this volume is an urgent and brilliantly transformative revelation of racial capitalism's conceptual possibilities for defying disciplinary enclosures and provoking new questions. -- Sarah Haley, author of <i>No Mercy Here: Gender, Punishment, and the Making of Jim Crow Modernity</i> Histories of Racial Capitalism is a stunning compilation of stellar original historical work that analyzes the co-constitutive dynamics of systems of global racial subordination and the capitalist social order. This volume will be required reading for a generation of scholars and activists. -- Michael Dawson, author of <i> Blacks In and Out of the Left</i> [Histories of Racial Capitalism] captures the elusive realities of racialism and anti-Blackness that permeate mechanisms of capital accumulation. * Monthly Review * Scholarly rigorous and superbly written. * American Studies *More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Illustrations
5 b&w photographs and graphs
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
ISBN-13
978-0-231-19075-6 (9780231190756)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Justin Leroy | Destin Jenkins
Histories of Racial Capitalism
E-Book
02/2021
1st Edition
Columbia University Press
€30.99
Available for download
Persons
Destin Jenkins is the Neubauer Family Assistant Professor of History at the University of Chicago. He is the author of The Bonds of Inequality: Debt and the Making of the American City (2021).
Justin Leroy is assistant professor of history and codirector of the Mellon Research Initiative on Racial Capitalism at the University of California, Davis.
Justin Leroy is assistant professor of history and codirector of the Mellon Research Initiative on Racial Capitalism at the University of California, Davis.
Content
Foreword, by Angela P. Harris
Introduction: The Old History of Capitalism, by Destin Jenkins and Justin Leroy
1. Race, Innovation, and Financial Growth: The Example of Foreclosure, by K-Sue Park
2. Gendering Racial Capitalism and the Black Heretical Tradition, by Shauna J. Sweeney
3. The Indebted Among the "Free": Producing Indian Labor through the Layers of Racial Capitalism, by Mishal Khan
4. Transpacific Migration, Racial Surplus, and Colonial Settlement, by Allan E. S. Lumba
5. The Counterrevolution of Property Along the 32nd Parallel, by Manu Karuka
6. Racial Capitalism and Black Philosophies of History, by Justin Leroy
7. Ghosts of the Past: Debt, the New South, and the Propaganda of History, by Destin Jenkins
8. Dead Labor: On Racial Capital and Fossil Capital, by Ryan Cecil Jobson
9. "They Speak Our Language . . . Business": Latinx Businesspeople and the Pursuit of Wealth in New York City, by Pedro A. Regalado
Contributors
Acknowledgments
Index
Introduction: The Old History of Capitalism, by Destin Jenkins and Justin Leroy
1. Race, Innovation, and Financial Growth: The Example of Foreclosure, by K-Sue Park
2. Gendering Racial Capitalism and the Black Heretical Tradition, by Shauna J. Sweeney
3. The Indebted Among the "Free": Producing Indian Labor through the Layers of Racial Capitalism, by Mishal Khan
4. Transpacific Migration, Racial Surplus, and Colonial Settlement, by Allan E. S. Lumba
5. The Counterrevolution of Property Along the 32nd Parallel, by Manu Karuka
6. Racial Capitalism and Black Philosophies of History, by Justin Leroy
7. Ghosts of the Past: Debt, the New South, and the Propaganda of History, by Destin Jenkins
8. Dead Labor: On Racial Capital and Fossil Capital, by Ryan Cecil Jobson
9. "They Speak Our Language . . . Business": Latinx Businesspeople and the Pursuit of Wealth in New York City, by Pedro A. Regalado
Contributors
Acknowledgments
Index