The Routledge History of Slavery

The Routledge History of Slavery is a landmark publication that provides an overview of the main themes surrounding the history of slavery from ancient Greece to the present day. Taking stock of the field of Slave Studies, the book explores the major advances that have taken place in the past few decades of study in this crucial field.

Offering an unusual, transnational history of slavery, the chapters have all been specially commissioned for the collection. The volume begins by delineating the global nature of the institution of slavery, examining slavery in different parts of the world and over time. Topics covered here include slavery in Africa and the Indian Ocean World, as well as the Transatlantic Slave Trade. In Part Two, the chapters explore different themes that define slavery such as slave culture, the slave economy, slave resistance and the planter class, as well as areas of life affected by slavery, such as family and work. The final part goes on to study changes and continuities over time, looking at areas such as abolition, the aftermath of emancipation and commemoration. The volume concludes with a chapter on modern slavery.

Including essays on all the key topics and issues, this important collection from a leading international group of scholars presents a comprehensive survey of the current state of the field. It will be essential reading for all those interested in the history of slavery.

'The editors have gathered an outstanding collection of scholars who contribute brief, informative, up-to-date, and sometimes powerful essays on slavery, predominantly plantation slavery in the Americas. The volume kicks off with single essays about Greek and Roman slavery, slavery in Africa, and then slavery in the Indian Ocean world, the latter perhaps being the subject most unknown of any covered here. From there, the volume moves to the slave trade in the New World and the origins of slavery in the Americas. Part 2, "The Character of Slavery," features a particularly fine essay by Jennifer Morgan on gender and family life. Indeed, an emphasis on how gender shaped slavery itself is a particularly strong point of the volume. Part 3 includes four essays on slavery and freedom through the age of revolution and abolition, and concludes with a piece on modern slavery. The net result is as fine a scholarly introduction and resource volume as currently exists, indispensable for university libraries. Summing Up: Essential. All levels/libraries.' - P. Harvey, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs

Gad Heuman is Professor of History and has served as Director of the Centre for Caribbean Studies at the University of Warwick. He is the author of Between Black and White (1981), The Killing Time (1994) and The Caribbean (2006). He is the editor of the journal, Slavery & Abolition.

Trevor Burnard is Professor of American History at the University of Warwick. He specialises in the history of plantation societies and slavery in the Americas and is the author of Mastery, Tyranny, and Desire: Thomas Thistlewood and his Slaves in the Anglo-Jamaican World (2004).