It is impossible to understand capitalism without analyzing slavery, an
institution that tied together three world regions: Europe, the
Americas, and Africa. The exploitation of slave labor led to a form of
proto-globalization in which violence was indispensable to the
production of wealth.
Against the background of this expanding circulation of capital and
slave labor, the first revolution in Latin America took place: the
Haitian Revolution, which began in 1791 and culminated with Haiti's
declaration of independence in 1804. Taking the Haitian Revolution as a
paradigmatic case, Grüner shows that modernity is not a linear evolution
from the center to the periphery but, rather, a co-production developed
in the context of highly unequal power relations, where extreme forms of
conquest and exploitation were an indispensable part of capital
accumulation. He also shows that the Haitian Revolution opened up a path
to a different kind of modernity, or "counter-modernity," a path along
which Latin America and the Caribbean have traveled ever since.
A key work of critical theory from a Latin American perspective, this
book will be of great interest to students and scholars of critical and
cultural theory and of Latin America, as well as anyone concerned with
the global impact of capitalism, colonialism, and race.