Publications

May 2022 (Revised May 2024)
Case

The Freedom Fund (A): Ending Modern Slavery

By: V. Kasturi Rangan and Courtney Han

The Freedom Fund founded in 2013 to end modern slavery had raised more than half its intended target (by 2025) of $200 million. In 2021, impressed by its decentralized-partnering style of operations, philanthropist MacKenzie Scott awarded the Fund a gift of $35 million... View Details

Keywords: Social Issues; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Spending; Decisions; India; Thailand; Ethiopia

Educators

03 May 2017
Book

The Clear Connection Between Slavery and American Capitalism

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

June 2024
Teaching Note

Abraham Lincoln: The Union and Slavery

By: Richard S. Tedlow

June 2024
Case

Abraham Lincoln: The Union and Slavery

By: Richard S. Tedlow

Educators

Web

Harvard and the Legacy of Slavery | About

Harvard and the Legacy of Slavery Published April 26, 2022 Share via Facebook Share via LinkedIn Print Share via email Earlier today, President Bacow released the Report and Recommendations of the Presidential Committee on Harvard and the... View Details

December 2005
Article

Capitalism and Freedom: Slavery and Manumission in Louisiana, 1725-1820

By: Shawn A. Cole

Keywords: Economic Systems; Society; Louisiana

Read Now

Summer 2023
Article

(Un)principled Agents: Monitoring Loyalty after the End of the Royal African Company Monopoly

By: Anne Ruderman and Marlous van Waijenburg

The revocation of the Royal African Company's monopoly in 1698 inaugurated a transformation of the transatlantic slave trade. While the RAC’s exit from the slave trade has received scholarly attention, little is known about the company’s response to the loss of its... View Details

Keywords: Slavery; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Business History; Monopoly; History; Business and Government Relations

2021
Working Paper

Capitalism, Slavery, and the Legacy of Cesare Beccaria

By: Sophus A. Reinert

The Milanese Marquis Cesare Beccaria (1738-1794) dedicated his life first to theorizing a more just and equal society grounded in individual rights, anchored in secular political economy rather than in religious dogma, then to realizing this bold vision... View Details

Keywords: Slavery; Racism; Capitalism; History; Society

Read Now

2021
Book

Time for Reparations: A Global Perspective

By: Jaqueline Bhabha, Margareta Matache and Caroline M. Elkins

In this sweeping international perspective on reparations, Time for Reparations makes the case that past state injustice—be it slavery or colonization, forced sterilization or widespread atrocities—has enduring consequences that generate ongoing harm, which... View Details

Keywords: Reparations; Slavery; Colonization; Structural Racism; State Injustice

September 2019 (Revised December 2022)
Background Note

African American Inequality in the United States

By: Janice H. Hammond, A. Kamau Massey and Mayra G. Garza

This note describes how historical and on-going policies and practices that discriminate against African Americans led to present-day inequality. Topics include slavery, segregation, Jim Crow laws, “black codes,” and policies and practices relating to criminal justice,... View Details

Keywords: African Americans; Justice; Slavery; Discrimination; Race; Equality and Inequality; Prejudice and Bias; Policy; History; United States

Educators

14 Feb 2017
News

Senate Conflicts Aren't New — And They Used To Be Much Bloodier

2016
Book

Slavery's Capitalism: A New History of American Economic Development

By: Sven Beckert and Seth Rockman

During the nineteenth century, the United States entered the ranks of the world's most advanced and dynamic economies. At the same time, the nation sustained an expansive and brutal system of human bondage. This was no mere coincidence. Slavery's Capitalism... View Details

Keywords: History; Development Economics; Ethics; Social Issues; United States

27 Mar 2019
HBS Seminar

Caitlin Rosenthal, UC Berkeley, Department of History

2014
Chapter

Firms and Global Capitalism

By: Geoffrey Jones

This chapter forms part of the two-volume Cambridge History of Capitalism, a definitive new reference work that traces the history of capitalism from its origins to the present day. The chapter focuses on the role of business enterprises as powerful actors in... View Details

Keywords: Political Economy; American History; Economic History; Business History; Labor History; Slavery; Numeracy And Quantification; Science And Technology Studies; History Of The Book; International Investment; International Business; International Marketing; Globalization; History

02 Mar 2021
Cold Call Podcast

Can Historic Social Injustices be Addressed Through Reparations?

Keywords: Re: Mihir A. Desai

06 Dec 2016
First Look

December 6, 2016

Seth Rockman, the issue is not whether slavery itself was or was not capitalist but, rather, the impossibility of understanding the nation's spectacular pattern of economic development without situating View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

Winter 2019
Article

Leadership Forged in Crisis

By: Nancy F. Koehn

Five great leaders from history (Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, Ernest Shackleton, Rachel Carson, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer), according to Koehn, had their leadership forged in crisis. She writes that “leaders can emerge from many different backgrounds, genders,... View Details

Keywords: Leadership; Leadership Style; Personal Characteristics; History