Atlas Of Slavery

¿James Walvin has over many years successfully bridged the worlds of academia, teachers, and the public at large, making the latest scholarly findings on the history of slavery accessible to the widest possible audience. His new book ¿ Atlas of Slavery ¿ in which he maps the history of slavery from ancient to modern times and provides a succinctly written commentary on the same, will further enhance his reputation as one of the leading international figures in raising public awareness and understanding of slavery and its impact on global history. As we approach in 2007/8 the bi-centenary of the abolition of the British and American Atlantic slave trades, Walvin¿s atlas reminds us of the magnitude of the task that faced those who sought ¿ and still seek ¿ to eradicate slavery.¿

David Richardson, Professor of Economic History, University of Hull.

 

The enslavement of Africans and their transportation across the Atlantic has come to occupy a unique place in the public imagination. Despite the wide-ranging atrocities of the twentieth century (including massive slave systems in Nazi Europe and the Russian Gulag), the Atlantic slave system continues to hold a horrible fascination. But slavery in the Atlantic world involved much more than the transportation of human cargo from one country to another, as Professor Walvin clearly explains in the Atlas of Slavery.

In this fascinating new book he looks at slavery in the Americas in the broadest context, taking account of both earlier and later forms of slavery.  The relationship between the critical continents, Europe, Africa and the Americas, is examined through a collection of maps and related text, which puts the key features of the history of slavery in their defining geographical setting. By foregrounding the historical geography of slavery, Professor Walvin shows how the people of three widely separated continents were brought together into an economic and human system that was characterized both by violence and cruelty to its victims and huge economic advantage to its owners and managers.

Professor Walvin¿s synthesis of the complex history of Atlantic slavery provides a fresh perspective from which to view and understand one of the most significant chapters in global history. We may think of slavery as a largely bygone phenomenon, but it is a practice that continues to this day, and the exploitation of vulnerable human beings remains a pressing contemporary issue.

 

"...a well-written textbook containing 87 maps, all accompanied by substantial text, that fills a gap in the market. It is a comprehensive but accessible survey of slavery over time."

"...as an introductory visual guide to slavery in all its bewildering variety, this atlas is ideal."

Trevor Burnard, The Times Higher, February 24th 2006

and#8220;The incomparable James Walvin has done it again: he has crafted a beautifully written and deeply informed single volume history of the Atlantic slave trade and its consequences on three continents. This book is full of fresh ideas and astounding detail; it is at once great storytelling, punctuated with real people and voices, and an unblinking analysis of numerous great questions and paradoxes about the power of slavery in creating the Atlantic world over four centuries.and#8221;

andldquo;Playing to his strengths as an engaging, enthusiastic, and well-informed historian of slavery, Walvin extends his prolific output in a book that offers a sweeping overview of transatlantic slavery and a reflective commentary on its continuing significance. The range and extent of scholarly publication on slavery in the Atlantic world and the pace with which that research is disseminated raise the need for an account, such as Crossings, that draws selectively on the secondary literature to provide an up-do-date synthesis of the findings of recent historians on plantation slavery.andrdquo;

"James Walvin has over many years successfully bridged the worlds of academia, teachers, and the public at large, making the latest scholarly findings on the history of slavery accessible to the widest possible audience. His new book - "Atlas of Slavery" - in which he maps the history of slavery from ancient to modern times and provides a succinctly written commentary on the same, will further enhance his reputation as one of the leading international figures in raising public awareness and understanding of slavery and its impact on global history. As we approach in 2007/8 the bi-centenary of the abolition of the British and American Atlantic slave trades, Walvin's atlas reminds us of the magnitude of the task that faced those who sought - and still seek - to eradicate slavery."

David Richardson, Professor of Economic History, University of Hull.

The enslavement of Africans and their transportation across the Atlantic has come to occupy a unique place in the public imagination. Despite the wide-ranging atrocities of the twentieth century (including massive slave systems in Nazi Europe and the Russian Gulag), the Atlantic slave system continues to hold a horrible fascination. But slavery in the Atlantic world involved much more than the transportation of human cargo from one country to another, as Professor Walvin clearly explains in the "Atlas of Slavery."

In this fascinating new book he looks at slavery in the Americas in the broadest context, taking account of both earlier and later forms of slavery. The relationship between the critical continents, Europe, Africa and the Americas, is examined through a collection of maps and related text, which puts the key features ofthe history of slavery in their defining geographical setting. By foregrounding the historical geography of slavery, Professor Walvin shows how the people of three widely separated continents were brought together into an economic and human system that was characterized both by violence and cruelty to its victims and huge economic advantage to its owners and managers.

Professor Walvin's synthesis of the complex history of Atlantic slavery provides a fresh perspective from which to view and understand one of the most significant chapters in global history. We may think of slavery as a largely bygone phenomenon, but it is a practice that continues to this day, and the exploitation of vulnerable human beings remains a pressing contemporary issue.

The first book to provide a visual cartographic account of the whole story of slavery and the slave trade.

• Enormous and growing interest in history of slavery
• Increasing awareness in UK of British black history
• No other Atlas of slavery available
• James Walvin is one of the premier scholars in this field

"James Walvin maps the history of slavery from ancient to modern times and provides a succinctly written commentary on the same,.......further enhancing his reputation as one of the leading international figures in raising public awareness and understanding of slavery and its impact on global history".

David Richardson, Professor of Economic History, University of Hull.

 

This is a wide-ranging and extremely useful study of the historical geography of slavery and the slave trade. This Atlas will be an invaluable resource for students studying slavery and for the general reader interested in this important area.

Professor Gad Heuman, Department of History, University of Warwick.

 

Slavery transformed Africa, Europe and the Americas and hugely-enhanced the well-being of the West but the subject of slavery can be hard to understand because of its huge geographic and chronological span. This book uses a unique atlas format to present the story of slavery, explaining its historical importance and making this complex story and its geographical setting easy to understand.

We all know the story of the slave tradeandmdash;the infamous Middle Passage, the horrifying conditions on slave ships, the millions that died on the journey, and the auctions that awaited the slaves upon their arrival in the Americas. But much of the writing on the subject has focused on the European traders and the arrival of slaves in North America. In Crossings, eminent historian James Walvin covers these established territories while also traveling back to the storyandrsquo;s origins in Africa and south to Brazil, an often forgotten part of the triangular trade, in an effort to explore the broad sweep of slavery across the Atlantic.and#160;Reconstructing the transatlantic slave trade from an extensive archive of new research, Walvin seeks to understand and describe how the trade began in Africa, the terrible ordeals experienced there by people sold into slavery, and the scars that remain on the continent today. Journeying across the ocean, he shows how Brazilian slavery was central to the development of the slave trade itself, as that country tested techniques and methods for trading and slavery that were successfully exported to the Caribbean and the rest of the Americas in the following centuries. Walvin also reveals the answers to vital questions that have never before been addressed, such as how a system that the Western world came to despise endured so long and how the Britishandmdash;who were fundamental in developing and perfecting the slave tradeandmdash;became the most prominent proponents of its eradication.and#160;The most authoritative history of the entire slave trade to date, Crossings offers a new understanding of one of the most important, and tragic, episodes in world history.

James Walvin is Professor of History at the University of York. Well-known for his work on slavery, he is co-editor of the journalSlavery and Abolition. His recent books on the subject include An African's Life: The Life and Times of Olaudah Equiano (1998), Quaker, Money and Morals (1997), Fruits of Empire: Tropical Staples and British Taste, 1660-1800 (1997), Questioning Slavery (1996), Slaves & Slavery (1992) and Black Ivory (1993). He also conducts research in modern social history which has formed the basis of two other books: The People's Game: The History of Football Revisited (1994) and The Only Game: Football in Our Times (Longman, 2001).

Introduction

1. Slavery in a global setting

2. The Ancient World

3. Overland Trade Routes

4. European slavery and slave trades

5. Exploration and the spread of sugar

6. Europeans, slaves and West Africa

7. Britain, slavery and the slave trade

8. Africa

9. The Atlantic

10. Crossing the Atlantic

11. Destinations

12. Arrivals

13. Brazil

14. The Caribbean

15. North America

16. Cotton and the USA

17. Slave Resistance

18. Abolition and Emancipation

19. East Africa and the Indian Ocean

20. Slavery after abolition

21. Chronology