Synopses & Reviews
Between 1501 and 1867, the transatlantic slave trade claimed an estimated 12.5 million Africans and involved almost every country with an Atlantic coastline. In this extraordinary book, two leading historians have created the first comprehensive, up-to-date atlas on this 350-year history of kidnapping and coercion. It features nearly 200 maps, especially created for the volume, that explore every detail of the African slave traffic to the New World. The atlas is based on an online database (www.slavevoyages.org) with records on nearly 35,000 slaving voyagesand#8212;roughly 80 percent of all such voyages ever made. Using maps, David Eltis and David Richardson show which nations participated in the slave trade, where the ships involved were outfitted, where the captives boarded ship, and where they were landed in the Americas, as well as the experience of the transatlantic voyage and the geographic dimensions of the eventual abolition of the traffic. Accompanying the maps are illustrations and contemporary literary selections, including poems, letters, and diary entries, intended to enhance readersand#8217; understanding of the human story underlying the trade from its inception to its end.
This groundbreaking work provides the fullest possible picture of the extent and inhumanity of one of the largest forced migrations in history.
Review
and#8220;Based on historical information compiled and extensively analyzed over the last decade, these essays expand our understanding of the transatlantic slave trade as nothing has done in the last two generations.and#8221;and#8212;James Oliver Horton, co-author of
Slavery and the Making of AmericaReview
and#8220;Only in recent decades have we recognized the absolutely central and indispensable role of the transatlantic slave trade in creating the New World as we know it. And only since 1999 have historians acquired massive new data that wholly revises our understanding of that historical crime. Now David Eltis and David Richardson, the two leading experts on the subject, have provided the first crucial collection of essays interpreting and explaining the new findings.and#8221;and#8212;David Brion Davis, author of
Inhuman Bondage: The Rise and Fall of Slavery in the New Worldandnbsp;
Review
"The greatest mystery in the history of the West, I believe, has always been the number of Africans who were enslaved and shipped to the New World.andnbsp;Who were these Africans?andnbsp;From whence did they hail? Where did they embark in Africa and disembark in the Americas?andnbsp;Five hundred years after that heinous trade commenced, this collection of essays, edited by David Eltis and David Richardson, has finally answered these questions.andnbsp;Together with the new slave trade database, this project has done more to reverse the Middle Passage than any other single act of scholarship possibly could. It is a scholarly miracle. Twelve and a half million slaves were lost; now, thanks to Eltis, Richardson and their contributors, they are found."and#8212;Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Harvard University
Review
"The complexity of all these chapters, liberally sprinkled with charts and graphs and rigorous logic, make clear both the enormous analytical power of the database and the great subtlety of method required to use its content responsibly to try to write history. . . . Editors Eltis and Richardson are clear on this vital distinction, and the studies in this book constitute an exemplory extension of the existing frontiers of knowledge and a solid base from which to advance them even further."and#8212;Joseph C. Miller, New West Indian Guide
Review
"David Blight has produced a fine edition of Douglass' second autobiography. This is an essential work in African-American and American history, and displays Douglass' developing strength as a writer and political leader."—Richard Slotkin, Wesleyan University
Review
"With scorching rhetoric, my heroic ancestor rails against the inhumanity of slavery while upholding the tenets of liberty with poetic elegance. His prophetic words, as relevant today as they were over a century ago, will inspire readers to become leaders in the mold of Frederick Douglass. In this new edition, David Blight presents a thorough examination of my great-great-great grandfather's life from his enslavement on the eastern shore of Maryland to his emergence as a revolutionary leader at the center of a national crisis over the future of slavery."—Kenneth B. Morris, Jr., Frederick Douglass Family Initiatives
Review
“David Blight's graceful introduction provides the essential historical context, public as well as private, and helps us appreciate how Douglass's great book managed to be at once a piercing polemic, an extraordinary act of memory, and a masterpiece of American prose.”—James Oakes, City University of New York
Synopsis
A monumental work, decades in the making: the first atlas to illustrate the entire scope of the transatlantic slave trade
Between 1501 and 1867, the transatlantic slave trade claimed an estimated 12.5 million Africans and involved almost every country with an Atlantic coastline. In this extraordinary book, two leading historians have created the first comprehensive, up-to-date atlas on this 350-year history of kidnapping and coercion. It features nearly 200 maps, especially created for the volume, that explore every detail of the African slave traffic to the New World. The atlas is based on an online database (www.slavevoyages.org) with records on nearly 35,000 slaving voyages roughly 80 percent of all such voyages ever made. Using maps, David Eltis and David Richardson show which nations participated in the slave trade, where the ships involved were outfitted, where the captives boarded ship, and where they were landed in the Americas, as well as the experience of the transatlantic voyage and the geographic dimensions of the eventual abolition of the traffic. Accompanying the maps are illustrations and contemporary literary selections, including poems, letters, and diary entries, intended to enhance readers understanding of the human story underlying the trade from its inception to its end.
This groundbreaking work provides the fullest possible picture of the extent and inhumanity of one of the largest forced migrations in history.
"
Synopsis
A extraordinary work, decades in the making: the first atlas to illustrate the entire scope of the transatlantic slave trade Winner of the Association of American Publishers' 2010 R.R. Hawkins Award and PROSE Award
"A monumental chronicle of this historical tragedy."--Dwight Garner, New York Times
Between 1501 and 1867, the transatlantic slave trade claimed an estimated 12.5 million Africans and involved almost every country with an Atlantic coastline. In this extraordinary book, two leading historians have created the first comprehensive, up-to-date atlas on this 350-year history of kidnapping and coercion. It features nearly 200 maps, especially created for the volume, that explore every detail of the African slave traffic to the New World. The atlas is based on an online database (www.slavevoyages.org) with records on nearly 35,000 slaving voyages--roughly 80 percent of all such voyages ever made.
Using maps, David Eltis and David Richardson show which nations participated in the slave trade, where the ships involved were outfitted, where the captives boarded ship, and where they were landed in the Americas, as well as the experience of the transatlantic voyage and the geographic dimensions of the eventual abolition of the traffic. Accompanying the maps are illustrations and contemporary literary selections, including poems, letters, and diary entries, intended to enhance readers' understanding of the human story underlying the trade from its inception to its end.
This groundbreaking work provides the fullest possible picture of the extent and inhumanity of one of the largest forced migrations in history.
Synopsis
Since 1999, intensive research efforts have vastly increased what is known about the history of coerced migration of transatlantic slaves. A huge database of slave trade voyages from Columbusand#8217;s era to the mid-nineteenth century is now available on an open-access Web site, incorporating newly discovered information from archives around the Atlantic world. The groundbreaking essays in this book draw on these new data to explore fundamental questions about the trade in African slaves. The research findingsand#151;that the size of the slave trade was 14 percent greater than had been estimated, that trade above and below the equator was largely separate, that ports sending out the most slave voyages were not in Europe but in Brazil, and moreand#151;challenge accepted understandings of transatlantic slavery and suggest a variety of new directions for important further research.
and#160;
For the most complete database on slave trade voyages ever compiled, visit www.slavevoyages.org.
Synopsis
Born into slavery in 1818, Frederick Douglass escaped to freedom and became a passionate advocate for abolition and social change and the foremost spokesperson for the nations enslaved African American population in the years preceding the Civil War.
My Bondage and My Freedom is Douglasss masterful recounting of his remarkable life and a fiery condemnation of a political and social system that would reduce people to property and keep an entire race in chains.
This classic is revisited with a new introduction and annotations by celebrated Douglass scholar David W. Blight. Blight situates the book within the politics of the 1850s and illuminates how My Bondage represents Douglass as a mature, confident, powerful writer who crafted some of the most unforgettable metaphors of slavery and freedom—indeed of basic human universal aspirations for freedom—anywhere in the English language.
Synopsis
A monumental work, decades in the making: the first atlas to illustrate the entire scope of the transatlantic slave trade
About the Author
David Eltis is Emeritus Robert W. Woodruff Professor at Emory University. David Richardson is the former director of the Wilberforce Institute for the Study of Slavery and Emancipation, and professor of economic history, University of Hull, England. Together, the authors coedited Extending the Frontiers: Essays on the New Transatlantic Slave Trade Database.