or Edward E. Baptist, the scandal was a gift. It had taken the Cornell University historian over a dozen years to produce a study tracing the creation of American capitalism to the expansion of slavery. It took less than one day for a short book review to turn his 400-page narrative into a cause célèbre.
The inciting review appeared in The Economist magazine. It faulted Baptist’s study, The Half Has Never Been Told (Basic Books, 2014), for exaggerating the brutality of bondage based on the questionable testimony of “a few slaves.” Baptist fired back in Politico and The Guardian. The magazine’s critique, he wrote, “revealed just how many white people remain reluctant to believe black people about the experience of being black.” The Economist, widely denounced online, published an apology.
The controversy stimulated both public discussion of slavery and sales of Baptist’s book. Within academe, though, some think it had another effect: to squelch debate over The Half Has Never Been Told. Skeptical scholars may have been wary of criticizing its arguments for fear of being perceived as apologists for slavery.
