Capital and Race

The History of a Modern Hydra
1. Auflage 2026
ISBN: 978-1-5095-7190-1
Verlag: Polity Press

Buch, Englisch, 336 Seiten, Format (B × H): 160 mm x 236 mm, Gewicht: 644 g

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.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Laurent, Sylvie

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Ethnologie | Volkskunde Ethnologie
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Volkswirtschaftslehre Volkswirtschaftslehre Allgemein Geschichte der VWL
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Volkswirtschaftslehre Wirtschaftspolitik, politische Ökonomie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

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

Über Autor(innen)

Sylvie Laurent is a cultural historian and a lecturer in American Studies at Sciences Po, Paris. She was previously a Fulbright Fellow at Harvard University, where she was later also a fellow in the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute. Laurent's publications include Homérique Amérique (2008), Martin Luther King: Une biographie intellectuelle et politique (2015), La couleur du marché: Racisme et néolibéralisme aux États-Uni (2016), King and the Other America: The Poor People's Campaign and the Quest for Economic Equality (2019), and La Contre-révolution californienne (2025).