Customer Reviews

Generations of Captivity: A History of African-American Slaves

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This review is written by someone who has just became acquainted with many of the details of the enslavement of [African][-][Americans] on the land that would eventually become the United States of America. "Generations of Captivity" introduced me to this long and tragic history. Written in a simple narrative format, helpfully broken up into five generations of African American slavery--the Charter [~1600-1720], Plantation [~1720-1776], Revolutionary [1776-1812], Migration [1812-1861] and Freedom generations--as well as geographical regions, Berlin's narrative of this ugly spectacle in American history is easy to follow and extremely informative to newcomers to the subject like myself. That being said, the book appears to be an abridged version of his previous book, "Many Thousands Gone." There are very few direct quotes from primary sources, and the statistics provided during the narrative are general at best (though a table of statistics is provided in an appendix). While Berlin's book introduced me to many of the specificities of slavery in the United States, I got the nagging feeling that, while I was reading this, something was missing. I'm probably being too critical, as each generation he writes about has most likely been the subject of numerous book-length studies in and of themselves, and it is Berlin's job here to condense all of them into a single narrative. This book is a very good introduction to the topic and I feel I have some more insight into it now. But those who have spent plenty of time with this subject material might want to search elsewhere.

This book is a very disappointing work from the usually excellent historian Ira Berlin. This book is essentially an abridged (and slightly revised) version of Many Thousands Gone with the addition of a short section on the Antebellum period of black life in the United States. It is disappointing because the addition of the later period coupled with the clear limits that were placed on its lenght lead to a book that is very watered down to the point where the text dwells in generalities and is just not very interesting.

I would say that if you are at all knowledgeable about slavery in America skip this book and look at his other book Many Thousands Gone. If you are not knowledgeable, this book can be a useful introduction to the subject and a spring board to more in depth studies.