Empires of Labor - Coercion and the Making of the Modern World

From the seventeenth century to the First World War, both free and unfree labor were essential for building an empire. This ambitious study examines the relationship between capitalism and coercion across the British, French and Russian empires throughout centuries of economic transformation. Overturning conventional explanations of serfdom, slavery, indentured migration and wage labor, Alessandro Stanziani demonstrates the dominance of aristocratic capitalism across Europe and Eurasia until the end of the nineteenth century. He links the Industrial Revolution, the Great Divergence and the Great Transformation into a single narrative in which the coercion and emancipation of labor are crucial steps. Stanziani argues that, if the modern state is now beset with labor inequalities and tensions surrounding mobility, it is not because Western values have been hijacked but because they were built on empire, labor and coercion.

List of contents

Introduction; Part I. Labor Rules and Colonization: 1. The Russian way: peasants, landowners and the empire; 2. The British empire: coercion in the name of freedom; 3. The French touch: protecting men in urban industry, excluding rural people, women and colonies; Part II. The Economics of Bondage: 4. The Russian empire and the economic dynamics of serfdom; 5. Labor and the British Industrial Revolution; 6. International trade, slavery and the industrial revolution; 7. With or without you. France and the empire of sugar; Part III. Labor Empires Under Attack. From Abolition to the Great Transformation, 1840-1918: 8. Who is the true slave?; 9. The aristocratic abolition of serfdom in Russia; 10. Abolition in the United States and the great transformation; 11 Neo-colonialism in the age of the welfare state; General conclusion and extrapolations.

About the author

Alessandro Stanziani is Professor of Global History at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS) and Senior Researcher at the CNRS. He is the author of Earth Capital: The Long History of Capitalism and Its Aftermath.

Product details

• Authors: Alessandro (Ecole Des Hautes Etudes En Stanziani, Stanziani Alessandro
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press ELT
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Release: 31.01.2026
• EAN: 9781009608572
• ISBN: 978-1-0-0960857-2
• No. of pages: 360
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History > General, dictionaries; Social sciences, law, business > Business > General, dictionaries; Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900, BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Economic History, 20th Century, 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000, c 1800 to c 1900, 19th century, c 1800 to c 1899, Economic history, 18th century, c 1700 to c 1799, 17th century, c 1600 to c 1699, Early 20th century c 1900 to c 1950, Early modern history: c 1450/1500 to c 1700, General and world history, C 1600 To C 1700, C 1700 To C 1800