Without Consent or Contract: The Rise and Fall of American Slavery [Hardcover]

Robert William Fogel (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1989

Describes the condition and treatment of the slaves, as well as the economic consequences of their subjugation. Although focusing on the southern States, the author places slavery within a national context by examining the overwhelming political force of the abolitionist movement.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The 1974 publication of Fogel's coolly statistical study Time on the Cross (coauthored with Stanley Engerman) sparked a controversy with its thesis that slavery in the American South, though morally repugnant, was profitable, efficient and economically viable. A synthesis of two decades of research, his latest book spells out a strong moral indictment of slavery which was mainly implicit in the earlier work. Among the findings presented are the following: slave breeding was not a major source of profit; masters did not generally work field hands to death, but they so overworked pregnant women that infant mortality rates soared; masters used slaves to fill managerial slots and craft professions in an effort to create a stable hierarchy. Abolitionists, in Fogel's view, were cultural elitists and religious crusaders who sought to replace Afro-American customs, language and religion with Anglo-Saxon "civilization." Reworking some of the material in Time on the Cross , this incisive, probing reexamination is bound to provoke controversy.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Fogel again creates a landmark in the scholarship on slavery, as he did with Time on the Cross (LJ 7/74), co-authored with Stanley Engerman. Here, in the first of several volumes--one on evidence and methods and two of technical papers--he draws a monumental mosaic of findings sice Kenneth Stampp's The Peculiar Institution (1956). He pictures slavery as economically efficient and rational; abolition, not slavery, as retarding the South's economic growth; politics, not economics, as destroying slavery. His analysis and narrative of slavery as an economic and social system, and of the ideological and political struggle to abolish it, and what he calls a "modern indictment"--made explicit in a highly personal afterword--help to transform perceptions of slavery and the black experience under it. No student of slavery, America, or the Atlantic world can ignore this book. Highest recommendation.
- Thomas J. Davis, SUNY at Buffalo
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 539 pages
• Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc; 1st edition (October 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393018873
• ISBN-13: 978-0393018875
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.3 x 1.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,820,336 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent history with puzzling economics, December 11, 2011

By 

Gderf - See all my reviews

This review is from: Without Consent or Contract: The Rise and Fall of American Slavery (Paperback)

This book expands on the conclusions of "Time on the Cross'. For all it's immorality, slavery was an economically viable institution, generally more profitable than free labor. More like a project than a book read, I'm not sure whether the object is economic or historical. Except for potential upward mobility slaves generally lived with better condition than free laborers in the North. At least one economic issue is understated. Without elaboration, Fogel says that the invention of the cotton gin benefited S. Carolina most of all.

I have to wonder why so much history and sociology is included in a book where the unique contribution is in the realm of economics (cliometrics). Probably Fogel doesn't want to be interpreted as condoning slavery as a result of economic viability. It's sometimes hard to separate out economic considerations from social issues.

I didn't get a good take on the cliometric method methodology behind the results. Maybe that takes digging into the background material in the three companion volumes. Fogel refers to cliometrics a number of times without explaining methods or objectives. The book gives no reason to think that econometric modeling can be any more successful in analyzing causes of past sociology and history than it has been in predicting modern economic and market trends.

Fogel doesn't agree with the speculation that slavery would have soon died out if restricted from expansion. In the afterword he speculates that slavery would not soon have died out if the cotton states had been allowed to secede peacefully. The book examines historical background, constitutionality, and social issues of culture and morality. It's better than any other book in comparisons of free and slave labor as well as the competition between the two economic systems.

I have difficulty relating the author's quantitative results to his thesis. The book presents quantitative data in the form of a number of charts, mostly early in the book, which are then dropped in favor of historical text. It's an excellent history, especially the analysis of antebellum slavery as to its economic viability, constitutionality and the political relations between N and S. An extensive history including moral stance and politics of the abolition movement is included. There's no wasted text in the 400 pages plus extensive bibliography.

In his historical background Fogel points out how statistics concerning economic viability of slavery was rejected by Garrison, Emerson, Lewis Tappan and other abolitionists. Apparently productivity declined throughout the British empire after Wiberforce's successful campaign for emancipation. Many other historians are cited. In his text Fogel references works of Phillips and Kenneth Stampp and others including Eric Foner in bibliography. Among the most interesting analysis is the countering economic viewpoint of on the spot economist Halpern Helper although Helper doesn't make it into the index or bibliography. Fogel also does a good job of summarizing the viewpoints of Cassius Clay and others. Thanks to Fogel for introducing me to William Jay, son of John Jay, who applied constitutional analysis to the legality of slavery and to the annexation of Texas. The conclusion states a case for restatement of the indictment of slavery with no help in interpreting the economic aspects of the text.

In the afterword Fogel cites need for a new indictment of slavery based on four points:
1.domination of one group over another
2.denial of economic opportunity
3.denial of citizenship
4.denial of cultural self identity
He plays down the cruelty aspect by showing that planter's economic interests were best served by keeping slaves in good condition. This is an interesting contrast to Walter Johnson's 'Soul by Soul', where the total emphasis is on the cruelty inherent in the internal slave trade.

The book can be divided into an excellent history and a puzzling economics text.

6 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Without Consent or Contract by Fogel, February 4, 2006

By 

Joseph S. Maresca "Dr. Joseph S. Maresca CPA,... (Bronxville, New York USA) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Without Consent or Contract: The Rise and Fall of American Slavery (Paperback)

This is an excellent work on the impact of slavery in the Americas.
Between 1600-1800, the New World slaves numbered under 1/5 of the
population in the Western Hemisphere. Before the American
Revolution, sugar was approximately 1/5 of English imports and
slaves produced commodities in England at about 30% . Sugar
plantations had a sugar factory with 20% slave labor. The workers
ground the sugar between rollers to extract juice. The juice
was filtered to remove impurities. Curing sugar involved
dripping molasses and a distillation process leading to rum.
In Cuba, railroad production was encouraged to serve the growing
sugar industry. The process of converting peasants to industrial
laborers was difficult due to the extreme resistance.

In the 20s and 30s, Stalin complained about resistance of
Russian muzhiks to the demands of modern assembly lines.
Andrew Ure, the apostle of the factory system, noted that it was
nearly impossible to convert persons past puberty to become
useful factory hands. This was due to the behavioral unwillingness to be dehumanized. The absence of sugar production
in the USA meant fewer slaves proportionately than in the
Caribbean. Cotton was not a major crop until the 19th century.

Between 1800-1860, there was a westward movement of cotton and
slaves. The Civil War achieved continued struggle of poor blacks
and whites and an improved economy. The contents of this book
would be an important contribution to American and World History
texts.