American Slavery: 1619-1877 [Paperback]

Peter Kolchin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 2003 | ISBN-10: 0809016303 | ISBN-13: 978-0809016303 | Edition: Revised and Updated

The single best short survey in America, now updated.
Includes a New Preface and Afterward

In terms of accessibility and comprehensive coverage, Kolchin's American Slavery is a singularly important achievement. Now updated to address a decade of new scholarship, the book includes a new preface, afterword, and revised and expanded bibliographic essay. It remains the best book to introduce a subject of profound and lasting importance, one that lies at the center of American history.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this readable synthesis of scholarship, University of Delaware history professor Kolchin takes a judicious view of historians' controversies surrounding this topic. Kolchin ( Unfree Labor: American Slavery and Russian Serfdom ) offers a good narrative account of American slavery, but the book is most useful for his historiographical navigation. While some scholars have argued that slaves quickly abandoned African ways, and others maintain that slave culture was strongly African, Kolchin disputes this dichotomy, describing instead the development of a unique African American culture. Likewise, Kolchin sees the validity of studies that have focused on slaves as victims as well as more recent work emphasizing their resiliency. With perspective drawn from his research into the end of slavery in other countries, Kolchin stresses that Reconstruction, once seen by scholars as cruel to Southern whites and more recently as insufficiently revolutionary, was in fact "an extraordinary departure" that took control of the mechanics of emancipation away from the former masters.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Kirkus Reviews

In a lively interpretive history, Kolchin (History/Univ. of Delaware) succinctly traces America's institution of slavery from its Colonial beginnings to the Reconstruction era. American slavery, Kolchin explains, didn't develop in isolation but evolved as part of a trend toward forced labor in the New World colonies, especially in the Caribbean and Brazil. In Colonial America, ``the initial demand for labor was precisely that--for labor--and was largely color-blind.'' Most forced laborers were indentured servants from Great Britain; although some slavery existed as early as the founding, in the early 17th century, of the Virginia colony, not until that century's close were Africans imported in large numbers as slaves. Kolchin reveals that, while the plantation slavery of what was to become the South developed distinctively (and primarily to cultivate tobacco and cotton), it had much in common with the plantation slavery of the Caribbean (where sugar was the primary crop). By about 1770, American slavery was concentrated mostly in the South, though it existed in all of the American colonies, and, as time passed, relationships between slaves and masters changed as second- generation slaves lost much of their African culture and became Americanized. In the US--in contrast to the Caribbean--slaves lived longer, developed considerable occupational diversity, and became acculturated, particularly in their absorption of Protestantism. The Revolutionary era saw slavery threatened by Enlightenment ideology, but the institution survived more strongly than ever in the South and, during the 19th century, came to be perceived as fundamental to the Southern economy and way of life. Kolchin writes about slave life through the Civil War, and, not surprisingly, he sees slavery as leaving a legacy that has persisted throughout our own century. A clear and briskly written survey that puts slavery in context and explains its continuing impact on American life. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Hill and Wang; Revised and Updated edition (September 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0809016303
• ISBN-13: 978-0809016303
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 6.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #55,167 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding Survey of American Slavery, December 18, 2000

By 

"roger_o" (Mercer, WI United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: American Slavery, 1619-1877 (Paperback)

Kolchin offers his book as a concise, readable synthesis of the movements in the historiography of slavery in the United States. Influenced by the movement toward social and cultural history, he devotes considerable attention to slave life in the antebellum south and the effects of the particular situation of slavery in the United States in shaping slave culture. Kolchin also situates slavery in the U.S. in the context of the world wide institution with comparisons to the Caribbean, Brazil, and to the Russian serfs which both highlights the unique situation of American Slaves and emphasizes that the institution of slavery did not exist in a vacuum.

The book progresses chronologically from the 1619 arrival of slaves in Jamestown to a brief discussion of the end of slavery and the problems of reconstruction, with thematic treatments of slave life, white control and paternalism in antebellum slavery as well as white society, economy, and ideology in the American south.

In producing such a smooth synthesis, Kolchin admittedly sacrifices a certain amount of detail and nuance for the sake of flow and clarity. Disconcerting, at times is his lack of documentation, another victim of simplicity in Kolchin's approach. While accomplishing his goal of remaining clear and readable, the reader sometimes wishes for some assistance in discerning the origin or fuller development of a particular position or point. To his credit, Kolchin works references to the historiography into his text well, and he provides an exceedingly thorough bibliographical essay at the end, which is probably the strongest segment of the work. Still, the lack of documentation sometimes proves frustrating and thus counters the goal of smooth flow in the text.

In the final analysis, however, Kolchin produces an excellent, readable volume that accomplishes his goal of a balanced narrative that shows how slavery evolved over time in the United States. So too has it accomplished its purpose in enlightening beginners and enkindling much scholarly discussion.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a very readable overview of American slavery, July 7, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: American Slavery, 1619-1877 (Paperback)

If you need a single volume work on American slavery, I can't think of a better choice. This is necessarily an overview of this fascinating subject, but the research is quite up to date, and pretty careful to show the range of scholarly opinions on some of the controversies that exist.

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent History of Slavery in the USA, November 17, 2000

By 

R. Albin (Ann Arbor, Michigan United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: American Slavery, 1619-1877 (Paperback)

Over the past 50 years, the study of slavery has been one of the most dynamic and contentious areas in American History. A large volume of first-rate scholarship now exists on many aspects of North American slavery. This excellent book is a successful effort to synthesize the large volume of information on North American slavery. The book is organized chronologically, beginning with the Colonial period and progressing through the Revolution and the Antebellum period. Kolchin does an excellent job of describing the historical evolution of slavery in the USA. Another meritorious aspect is that Kolchin is an expert on the comparative history of slavery and provides useful comparative perspectives by comparing North American slavery with the features of other unfree societies. Kolchin is a clear writer and the book is very well organized. There is an excellent annotated bibliography which is a fine guide for readers interested in more specialized works on this topic. This is a must read for anyone interested in American History.