Douglass North once emphasized that development takes centuries, but he did not have a theory of how and why change occurs. This groundbreaking book advances such a theory by examining in detail why England and Spain developed so slowly from 1000 to 1800. A colonial legacy must go back centuries...

The cotton crisis: Lancashire, the American South, and the turn to "Empire Cotton" -- "The Black man's crop": The British Cotton Growing Association and Africa -- "The scientific redemption of Africa": Coercion and regulation in colonial agriculture -- "King Cotton's impoverished retinue":...

"In the mid-nineteenth century, U.S. slavery was characterized by relentless expansion and unrelenting exportation, not only of commodities but also of ideas. Zach Sell traces U.S. slavery's significance to colonial land-based dispossessions on a global scale, showing how slavery molded the...

How it began: Great Britain and the developing world. The East India company -- Informal empire: Argentina; Egypt; China -- Varieties of colonialism: India, Nigeria -- How it continues: the United States and the developing world. Seeking influence abroad: Caribbean, Pacific Asia -- Fighting...

"Settler Garrison offers an analysis of how transpacific cultural productions provide an alternative, anti-militarist, and decolonial archive to U.S. militarist settler imperialism in Asia and the Pacific. Focusing on the post-World War II era, Jodi Kim theorizes militarist settler imperialism...

Soul drivers, market makers -- "The most notorious of the Baltimore Negro-buyers" -- Sweet dreams and smuggling schemes -- Bank bonds and bondspersons -- "The slave-factory of Franklin & Armfield" -- Chains of violence -- Machines of empire -- Conclusion

"The relationship between race and capitalism is one of the most enduring and controversial historical debates. The concept of racial capitalism offers a way out of this impasse. Racial capitalism is not simply a permutation, phase, or stage in the larger history of capitalism-since the...