Catherine Hall
Lucky Valley: Edward Long and the History of Racial Capitalism
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2024

We turn to racial capitalism. Hall writes:

‘Edward Long’s arrival in Jamaica, his acquisition of the family plantation, ‘Lucky Valley’, and his account of what it meant to be a slave-owner, a planter, to manage such an estate with the labour of enslaved men and women and how to secure the reproduction of that labour system, are described [here]. [His] History [of Jamaica] was written at a time when the plantation economy was flourishing but the slave trade and slavery were subject to increasing criticism in the metropole. The picture he provided was designed to persuade readers, and himself, of the benign nature of colonial slavery, whilst encouraging the new white settlers who were essential for political and social stability. Unwittingly, he provided a picture of the workings of what we might now define as racial capitalism.’ p. 89.

Schedule of Reading:

Unsettled Subjects met to discuss reading this book between September and December 2024

27 September A Note on Language, Prologue; and Introduction (pp. xviii – xxx; pp. 1-38).

11 October Part 1: Growing up English, chapters one and two (pp. 39-84).

25 October Part 2: The Lineaments of Racial Capitalism, chapters three and four (pp. 85-201).

8 November Part 2, chapter five (pp. 202-262).

29 November  Part 3: Making a Slave Society, chapters six and seven (pp. 263-371)

13 December Part 3, chapter eight; and Epilogue (pp. 372-445).