The Atlantic Slave Trade (New Approaches to the Americas) [Paperback]

Herbert S. Klein (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 13, 1999 | ISBN-10: 0521465885 | ISBN-13: 978-0521465885 | Edition: 1

This survey synthesizes the economic, social, cultural and political history of the Atlantic slave trade. It details the current scholarly knowledge of forced African migration and compares this knowledge to popular beliefs. The book examines the 400 years of the Atlantic slave trade, covering the West and East African experiences and the American colonies and republics that obtained slaves from Africa, outlining common features and local variations. It discusses the slave trade's economics, politics, demographic impact, and cultural implications in Africa and America, places the slave trade in the context of world trade, and examines its role in the growing relationship among Asia, Africa, Europe and America.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"...a most welcome synthesis..." Latin American Research Review

"Herbert Klein's long-standing leadership in quantitative studies of the Atlantic slave trade is thoroughly in evidence in this reasonably priced survey of the Atlantic slave trade, written for non-acdemic readers....a theoretical tour de force, and a very sophisticated and accessible one at that." Nadia Lovell, International Journal of African Historical Studies

"Klein is especially adept at using statistical studies to shed light on social and cultural history....This is a concise and thoughtful synthesis of interdisciplinary history." Journal of Interdisciplinary History

"...provides a convenient account of the complex history and extensive historiography of one of the most important and pervasive human activities of the past 500 years. In this short but important book, Herbert Klein sets out to examine the nature and importance of the trade and the reasons for its dissolution." Historian

Book Description

This survey synthesizes the economic, social, cultural and political history of the Atlantic slave trade. It details the current scholarly knowledge of forced African migration and compares this knowledge to popular beliefs. The book examines the 400 years of the Atlantic slave trade, covering the West and East African experiences and the American colonies and republics that obtained slaves from Africa, outlining common features and local variations. It discusses the slave trade's economics, politics, demographic impact, and cultural implications in Africa and America, places the slave trade in the context of world trade, and examines its role in the growing relationship between Asia, Africa, Europe and America.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press; 1 edition (April 13, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0521465885
• ISBN-13: 978-0521465885
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,115,669 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Short but insightful, October 3, 2007

By 

Luis Mansilla Miranda (Viña del Mar, Chile) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: The Atlantic Slave Trade (New Approaches to the Americas) (Paperback)

The Atlantic Slave Trade is an important part of history of several nations: great part of Africa of course, the nations in America who were immmersed in this trade as buyers and those European countries who had control of the trade to its colonies. One important question that I had in my mind before reading this book was "why Africans were enslaved", curiously the first words of chapter 1, and why in this New World, the American Indians were not used as workers? Seems that everything conspired for this trading to flourish, in particular the decline of native population and because those native became new Christians. But seems there is another reason, not named in this book, and is that those native american were not that productive than Africans or Chinese.

This is a short book and the author provide an insightful introduction, focusing especially in the economic side of this trade and its organization, showing a great deal of statistical information. There is not much of the people side of events -- I am referring to the sufferings stories of the Africans, but it does name the story of Igbo Equiano, an African slave that wrote a book about his experiences and I'm eager to know more about it.

5.0 out of 5 stars A Current Scholarly Approach to the Atlantic Slave Trade, January 29, 2012

By 

King Elessar (Woodbury, MN) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The Atlantic Slave Trade (New Approaches to the Americas) (Paperback)

This book does an outstanding job achieving its objective--to illustrate the current turn in scholarship that shows the complexity of an exchange system predating the arrival of the European slave traders in Africa. It suggests that many African societies were implicated in the slave trade internally, primarily shipping slaves to North Africa. Indeed, learning of the legality and normality of the system in Africa was enlightening to me.

Although some readers might be a little disappointed by the methodological and dispassionate tone of the author, they should know that the author aims a different mark and does an extraordinary job in discrediting the more polemical and popular accounts of the Atlantic Slave Trade. I am now very interested in learning more about the Atlantic Slave Trade and African history in general after reading this book.

Highly recommended if you can stomach a tone disinterested in engaging with normative questions raised by slavery, imperialism, and their role in Africa generally.