American Road To Capitalism, The: Studies In Class Structure, Economic Development And Political Conflict

CHARLES POST, Ph. D. (1983) in Sociology, SUNY-Binghamton, is Professor of Sociology at Borough of Manhattan Community College-CUNY. He has published in New Left Review, Journal of Peasant Studies, Journal of Agrarian Change, Against the Current and Historical Materialism.

• Foreword by Ellen Meiksins WoodIntroduction 1. The American Road to Capitalismi. Plantation-slaveryii. Agrarian petty-commodity productioniii. Capitalist manufacture and industryiv. Conclusion: the Civil War2. The Agrarian Origins of US Capitalism: The Transformation of the Northern Countryside before the Civil Wari. Rural class-structure in the North before the Civil Warii. Debating the transformation of northern agricultureiii. The transformation of the northern countryside, c. 1776–18613. Plantation-Slavery and Economic Development in the Antebellum Southern United Statesi. The ‘planter-capitalism’ modelii. The ‘non-bourgeois civilisation’ modeliii. Class-structure and economic development in the antebellum-South4. Agrarian Class-Structure and Economic Development in Colonial British North America: The Place of the American Revolution in the Origins of US Capitalismi. The commercialisation-staples modelii. The demographic-frontier modeliii. Agrarian social-property relations in colonial British North Americaiv. Colonial economic development, the American Revolution, and the development of capitalism in the US, 1776–18615. Social-Property Relations, Class-Conflict and the Origins of the US Civil War: Toward a New Social Interpretationi. Ashworth’s social interpretation of the US Civil Warii. A critique of slavery, capitalism and politics in the antebellum-republiciii. Toward a new social interpretation of the US Civil WarConclusion: Democracy against Capitalism in the Post-Civil-War United Statesi. Democracy against capitalism in the North: radicalism, class-struggle and the rise of liberal democracy, 1863–77ii. Democracy against capitalism in the South: the rise and fall of peasant-citizenship, 1865–77iii. The defeat of populism, ‘Jim Crow’ and the establishment of capitalist plantation-agriculture in the South, 1877–1900ReferencesIndex

"Charles Post's new book, The American Road to Capitalism, is sure to become a reference point for debates among historians and Marxists about the transformation of the English colonies into the fully developed capitalist United States. [...] it should be widely read, appreciated for its insights and rigor, and also debated."—Ashley Smith, International Socialist Review"This is a thoughtful, learned, stimulating, challenging and altogether valuable volume. It reprints a series of reflections by the Marxist sociologist Charles Post on various aspects of the rise and evolution of capitalism in North America between the colonial era and the late 19th century. The book is anchored in a wide-ranging study of (and it duly credits) the work of generations of historians."—Bruce Levine, author of Confederate Emancipation: Southern Plans to Free and Arm Slaves during the Civil War"Explaining the origin and early development of American capitalism is a particularly challenging task. It is in some ways even more difficult than in other cases to strike the right historical balance, capturing the systemic imperatives of capitalism, and explaining how they emerged, while doing justice to historical particularities… To confront these historical complexities requires both a command of historical detail and a clear theoretical grasp of capitalism’s systemic imperatives, a combination that is all too rare. Charles Post succeeds in striking that difficult balance, which makes his book a major contribution to truly historical scholarship."—Ellen Meiksins-Wood, York University, author of The Origins of Capitalism: A Long View."In The American Road to Capitalism, Charles Post offers a brilliant reinterpretation of the origins and diverging paths of economic evolution in the American north and south. The first systematic historical materialist account of US development from the colonial period through the civil war in a very long time, it is sure to be received as a landmark contribution."—Robert P. Brenner, University of California-Los Angeles, author of Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Early Modern Europe and Merchants and Revolution: Commercial Change, Political Conflict, and London's Overseas Traders, 1550-1653."Charles Post has written an excellent book on the origins of American capitalism in the antebellum North, on plantation slavery in the Old South and on the cataclysmic conflict between them. His interpretation is bold and controversial; it will have to be considered by all scholars in the field."—John Ashworth, University of Nottingham, author of Slavery, Capitalism and the Antebellum Republic."This is the most original and provocative materialist interpretation of the origins and dynamics of US capitalism for a long time. Post combines impressive command of the historical sources with a sharp analytical understanding, not least of the centrality of agrarian questions to the development of capitalism."—Henry Bernstein, University of London, School of Oriental and African Studies and China Agricultural University, Beijing, emeritus editor Journal of Agrarian Change."Over the past three decades, Charles Post has been developing an original and powerful interpretation of the American road to capitalism. This volume brings together his most important essays in what is sure to be a landmark volume. Post brilliantly analyzes the structural basis of economic development in both the North and the South, culminating in a powerful interpretation of the social basis of the Civil War. The book is one of the best examples of historical sociology that I have seen in recent years, effortlessly melding theory and historical research. This is engaged scholarship of the highest order."—Vivek Chibber, New York University, author of Locked In Place: State Building and Late Industrialization in India“Charlie Post's The American Road to Capitalism is a magisterial text that deserves a close reading, in particular by scholars attempting to make sense of 20th century capitalism in the United States.—Jordy Cummings, The Journal of Socialist Studies