Edward E. Baptist

Edward E. Baptist is an American historian and professor of history at Cornell University who specializes in the history of the American South in the 19th century. He is best known for his award-winning book, The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism, which takes a groundbreaking look at how economic forces and the enslavement of millions of African-Americans combined to shape the United States of America. The book is considered a must-read for anyone interested in learning about the full scope of the American economic history.

Baptist was born in Richmond, Virginia in 1977 and grew up in the nearby small town of Appomattox. After graduating from high school, he received degrees from the University of Virginia and the College of William & Mary before visiting Mexico and the Caribbean as an American Council of Learned Societies Fellow. His research there, along with further studies at Harvard University, led him to focus on the history of race, labor, and freedom in the United States.

In The Half Has Never Been Told, Baptist uses an expansive range of primary sources to reveal how enslaved African-Americans were integral to the nation's transformation from an agricultural to a commercial economy. He focuses on how these enslaved workers—who were forced to work without pay under inhumane conditions—were able to produce a southern agricultural economy that was the foundation of the United States’ global economic might. Baptist also examines how the forces of slavery continue to shape race relations in America today.

In addition to his work on The Half Has Never Been Told, Baptist is the author of Creating an Old South: Middle Florida’s Plantation Frontier before the Civil War and Generous Enemies: Patriots and Loyalists in Revolutionary New York, which he co-authored with Jane Kamensky. He has received numerous awards and honors, including the Alfred Knopf Pathfinder Award for excellence in historical scholarship, the Frederick Jackson Turner Prize for the best book in U.S. history, and the Tachau Teacher-Scholar Award, given to the best young scholar in the field of American history.

Baptist continues to write and publish prolifically, both in academia and beyond. He is a regular contributor to The New York Times, Slate, and other publications, where he spends much of his time focusing on issues surrounding America’s oppressed racial minority groups. Moreover, he works to ensure that the history he explores is accurately relayed to the public in an accessible way.

In his university lectures and essays, and through his award winning book The Half Has Never Been Told, Edward E. Baptist has illuminated the lasting impact of slavery on the American economy, societal structure, and economic inequality. His works are essential reading for anyone interested in studying the deep-seated economic and political forces that have shaped American history.