War Capitalism: Notes on Sven Beckert’s Empire of Cotton #envhist

Sven Beckert’s Empire of Cotton examines the significant influence that the institution of slavery had on the foundation of the United States’ role in cotton production and dawning of global capitalism. In the years following the treaty of independence of 1783, the areas in the upper South where enslaved people were concentrated experienced a severe …

Notes on Thomas Rogers’ Deepest Wounds

Thomas Rogers’ “The Deepest Wounds: Labor and Environmental History of Sugar in Northeast Brazil” expands our knowledge in understanding the rupture, continuity and change in the zona da mata region of Brazil. Rogers’ foremost concern in the book is assessing the damage that monoculture did to landscape and society in the region as well as …