The new history of capitalism (NHC) places a great deal of emphasis on slavery as a crucial world institution. Slavery, it is alleged, arose out of, and underpinned, capitalist development. This article starts by showing the intellectual and scholarly foundations of some of the broad conclusions of the NHC. It proceeds by arguing that capitalist transformation must rely on a global framework of analysis. The article considers three critiques in relation to the NHC. First, the NHC overemphasizes the importance of coercion to economic growth in the eighteenth century. We argue that what has been called ‘war capitalism’ might be better served by an analysis in which the political economy of European states and empires, rather than coercion, is a key factor in the transformation of capitalism at a global scale. Second, in linking slavery to industrialization, the NHC proposes a misleading chronology. Cotton produced in large quantities in the United States came too late to cause an Industrial Revolution which, we argue, developed gradually from the latter half of the seventeenth century and which was well established by the 1790s, when cotton started to arrive from the American South. During early industrialization, sugar, not cotton, was the main plantation crop in the Americas. Third, the NHC is overly concentrated on production and especially on slave plantation economies. It underplays the ‘power of consumption’, where consumers came to purchase increasing amounts of plantation goods, including sugar, rice, indigo, tobacco, cotton, and coffee. To see slavery’s role in fostering the preconditions of industrialization and the Great Divergence, we must tell a story about slavery’s place in supporting the expansion of consumption, as well as a story about production

中文翻译：

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奴隶制和资本主义的新历史

资本主义新历史（NHC）非常强调奴隶制是一个重要的世界制度。据称，奴隶制源于资本主义发展，并以此为基础。本文首先展示了 NHC 的一些广泛结论的知识和学术基础。它继续论证资本主义转型必须依赖于全球分析框架。这篇文章考虑了与 NHC 相关的三个批评。首先，NHC 过分强调胁迫对 18 世纪经济增长的重要性。我们认为，欧洲国家和帝国的政治经济，而不是强制，是全球范围内资本主义转型的关键因素，可能更好地服务于所谓的“战争资本主义”。第二，在将奴隶制与工业化联系起来时，NHC 提出了一个误导性的年表。美国大量生产的棉花来得太晚，未能引发一场工业革命，我们认为，这场工业革命是从 17 世纪下半叶逐渐发展起来的，并且在 1790 年代棉花开始从美国南部运抵时就已经确立了. 在早期工业化时期，美洲的主要种植作物是糖而不是棉花。第三，NHC 过度关注生产，尤其是奴隶种植园经济。它低估了“消费的力量”，消费者开始购买越来越多的种植园商品，包括糖、大米、靛蓝、烟草、棉花和咖啡。看到奴隶制在促进工业化和大分流的先决条件中的作用，