RaveThe New York TimesNever before has so much qualitative and quantitative evidence been brought to bear on so broad a reinterpretation of this story. Previous histories have usually treated capitalism as a European invention, but Beckert, as ambitious as he is erudite, shows how capitalism arose as a global phenomenon, the peculiar behavior of a few merchants in places as far apart as Cairo and Changzhou ... Many histories of capitalism are abstract, structural and narrowly economic, but Beckert enriches his story by recreating for the reader the places where his subjects made their fortunes ... Readers around the world will study and ponder this monumental work of history, agreeing and arguing with it, all the while affirming its generational importance, for decades to come.
RaveThe New York TimesPowerful ... Kara provides a microhistory of the ship and its most fateful voyage, narrating in gripping detail every stage of its violent and historic trans-Atlantic journey ... Kara has done impressive research in the archives of the Royal African Company ... Wrenchingly vivid ... The book is in the end a model of sophisticated research, lucid writing and engaged conscience ... The connections are real but the conception of causation is too narrow .… The limited conception of causation, from great man to great man, also obscures the massive resistance of enslaved people themselves against the institution of slavery and reduces most of them to suffering victims ... The Zorg remains a book of great importance and one that will likely become a classic .… Even if the Zorg and the ensuing debate were not quite what the author makes them out to be, they will always be a potent exposé of the ancient clash between humanity and property.
