Revisiting Time on the Cross After 45 Years: The Slavery Debates and the New Economic History

In recent years, a wave of celebrated books by historians has explored the role of slavery in the development of American capitalism. Some of the new works make arguments that resemble those of Robert Fogel and Stanley Engerman’s 1974 book Time on the Cross, yet they do not engage with the debates surrounding that book or the extensive literature that followed its publication. This paper revisits those debates and discusses subsequent works that have changed how economists analyze slavery in order to make the literature more accessible to non-specialists. The discussion highlights criticisms of Time on the Cross by both economists and historians that remain relevant to the new works on slavery and capitalism.