Customer Reviews

American Slavery: 1619-1877

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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.

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.

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.

This book presents a detailed,yet very informative and interesting history of slavery in North America from the pre-Colonial period through Reconstruction. The author discusses the beginnings, heyday, and end of slavery from the point of view of both slaves and masters. Also presented are the demographics, sectional viewpoints,and psychological impacts of slavery. This concise treatment of a complex subject is very readable and contains abundant references to other works on the subject. It is, however, a "pure text" reference (i.e., no photos or figures), but there are some statistical tables at the end of the book.

This book succeeds as an overview of American Slavery. It portrays the progression of our "peculiar institution" from earliest colonial times up through Reconstruction. The Author focuses on the changing nature of the relationship between slave and master, the role of religion as both a tool and dilemma for the slave system (and as a primary cultural marker for slaves) and the evolving debate undergirding the defense of slavery and the unique nature of the Antibellum South.

The book also delves, sparringly, into slave life and experiences.

It is a little dry in places and the writing style at times reads like an academic journal. I would have preferred more anacdotes to buttress some of the claims made by the author, if nothing else to make the book more interesting. However, in many places he does make use of statistics to reinforce his conclusions, which adds weight to the arguments presented in the book.

Overall, a good overview and introduction to slavery as it existed in the United States

This is a perfect intro for the beginner and for teachers looking for a way to get a hold of what has become a vast subject. Makes a nice book to assign to undergrads as well.

I ordered this book and it came on time and in the condition listed. Thank you so much for such great service!

This is my third Kolchin book his expertise on Slavery is without question. My issues relate to his central theme that Slavery in the Americas relate only to Black and White individuals. Native Americans had slavery in the Americas long before the first white person appeared on the horizon. Currently many black youths are "slaves" to gangs and the culture of blame and government dependence.

Kolchin has come to the realization that slavery is only towards blacks and to be blamed on white people United States. His focus on Racism is also suspect because of his inability to focus on racism within the Black community that is prevalent not only towards whites but all other races including black.

This issue is not black and white. Kolchin needs to focus on ways to learn from the racism and slavery history so that people from all races can unite and have common goals instead of race-baiting by using history to justify racism towards whites and all Americans.

This book was bought for my daughters college class as the college book store was out of stock at the time of classes starting