Abstract

This essay analysis the recent publication Le metamorfosi del lavoro coatto. Una storia globale XVIII-XIX secolo, by Alessandro Stanziani, that provides a global history of coerced labor by questioning the multiple definitions of freedom, in particular in Russia, colonial Congo and the Indian Ocean. The volume contributes to deconstructing the traditional narratives that considered 18th and 19th century Europe dominated by the advent of capitalism, and the transition from slavery to wage labor. On the contrary, the entanglement of capitalism, coercion and inequality has established long-lasting configurations of dependency, above all under liberalism. The author demonstrates how «unfree» labor can’t be understood without «free» labor as they have been always intertwined in a single history