The Soul of Racial Capitalism

This essay reviews Catherine Hall’s Lucky Valley: Edward Long and the History of Racial Capitalism (2024)—an economic and intellectual history of the Jamaican enslaver and author Edward Long—emphasizing the way the book weaves together economic and intellectual history. It draws particular attention to how Lucky Valley treats Long’s thinking about race, arguing that Hall’s account allows us to see this idea emerging and changing in relationship with the specific economic and imperial conjuncture of the mid- to late eighteenth century. It likewise highlights Hall’s usage of the psychoanalytic idea of splitting as a way to understand how Hall seems to have projected onto Africans and enslaved peoples elements of Long’s fears and desires.