Empires of labor coercion and the making of the modern world Alessandro Stanziani

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Stanziani, Alessandro, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Slavery.

Serfdom.

Imperialism.

Economic history.

Colonies.

Great Britain.

Russia.

France.

Genre:

History

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Place of Publication:

Cambridge Cambridge University Press 2026

Summary:

"From the seventeenth century to the First World War, both free and unfree labor were essential for building an empire. This ambitious study examines the relationship between capitalism and coercion across the British, French and Russian empires throughout centuries of economic transformation. Overturning conventional explanations of serfdom, slavery, indentured migration and wage labor, Alessandro Stanziani demonstrates the dominance of aristocratic capitalism across Europe and Eurasia until the end of the nineteenth century. He links the Industrial Revolution, the Great Divergence and the Great Transformation into a single narrative in which the coercion and emancipation of labor are crucial steps. Stanziani argues that, if the modern state is now beset with labor inequalities and tensions surrounding mobility, it is not because Western values have been hijacked but because they were built on empire, labor and coercion"-- Provided by publisher

Contents:

The Russian way : peasants, landowners and the empire

The British Empire : coercion in the name of freedom

The French touch : protecting men in urban industry, excluding rural people, women and colonies

The Russian Empire and the economic dynamics of serfdom

Labor and the British industrial revolution

International trade, slavery and the industrial revolution

With or without you : France and the empire of sugar

Who is the true slave?

The aristocratic abolition of serfdom in Russia

Abolition in the United States and the great transformation

Neo-colonialism in the age of the welfare state

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index

Online resource; title from PDF title page (Cambridge University Press, viewed December 3, 2025)

Other Format:

Print version Stanziani, Alessandro Empires of labor

ISBN:

9781009608602

1009608606

OCLC:

1525472501

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license