Notes on Schermerhorn’s “Business of Slavery and the Rise of American Capitalism”

Calvin Schermerhorn’s The Business of Slavery and the Rise of American Capitalism “details the interstate United States slave trade at the level of the firm.”[1] Schermerhorn investigates slave traders who were business insiders as well as merchants using financial processes that characterized raw ambition. The monetary flows influencing the roots of American capitalism through these …

Notes on Joyce Appleby’s “Relentless Revolution”

  Joyce Appleby’s “Relentless Revolution: A History of Capitalism” “explores the benchmarks of capitalism’s ascent through analyzing the capitalist system as it relates to practices, thoughts, values, and ideals present in the political formation of western society." Appleby’s conception of charting the evolution of capitalism as it is observed today is through the lens of …

Notes on the 19th Century: The Functions of Victorian Manners

The functions of Victorian manners during the 19th century rested on its investment in creating a genteel populace. In this way Victorian manners can be seen as an “investment” of the body. Michel Foucault reminds that, “…the body is directly involved in a political field, power relations have an immediate hold upon it, they invest …