1 Williams, Eric, Capitalism and Slavery (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1944)Google Scholar. For a sampling of the many contributions to the “Williams thesis”, see Solow, Barbara L. and Engerman, Stanley L., eds., British Capitalism and Caribbean Slavery: The Legacy of Eric Williams (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987)Google Scholar; and Cateau, Heather and Carrington, S.H.H., eds., Capitalism and Slavery Fifty Years Later: Eric Eustace Williams—A Reassessment of the Man and His Work (New York: Peter Lang, 2000).Google Scholar

2 To cite only one prominent work from each of these conceptualisations: Landes, David S., The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some are so Rich and Some so Poor (New York: W.W Norton, 1998)Google Scholar; Pomeranz, Kenneth, The Great Divergence: Europe, China, and the Making of the Modern World Economy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000)Google Scholar; and Crouzet, François, Britain Ascendant: Comparative Studies in Franco-British Economic History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Paris: Editions de la Maison des sciences de l'homme, 1990).Google Scholar

3 For a summary, see Inikori, Joseph, Africans and the Industrial Revolution in England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 Morgan, Kenneth, Slavery, Atlantic Trade and the British Economy, 1660–1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000)Google Scholar; Blackburn, Robin, The Making of New World Slavery: From the Baroque to the Modern, 1492–1800 (London: Verso, 1997), chap. 12 and epilogue.Google Scholar