In his latest book, Ian Angus answers a question that apologists for the capitalist system would like to pretend does not exist.

As regular readers of this blog will be aware I think that Andreas Malm, even where I disagree with key points of his argument, is one of the most stimulating Marxist authors on environmental politics.

The “Dust Bowl” of the 1930s was an iconic moment in American history. As a result of what one historian called “the inevitable outcome of a culture that deliberately, self-consciously, set itself [the] task of dominating and exploiting the land for all it was worth” tens of thousands of people fled their homes, usually losing their entire livelihoods in the process.

This marvelous work of history is a must read for anyone trying to understand the dynamics of slavery in the United States in the pre-Civil War period. Walter Johnson locates slavery as playing a central part in the development of a particularly racialised and oppressive capitalism in the slave states.