Table of Contents

Introduction: The Constituent Elements of Slavery

Promotional Information

This is clearly a major and important work, one which will be widely discussed, cited, and used. I anticipate that it will be considered among the landmarks in the study of slavery, and will be read by historians, sociologists, and anthropologists--as well as many other scholars and students. It will be of concern to readers interested in just about any time and place, and not only to those with a specific interest in slavery. It covers an enormous range of materials in history, the social sciences, and the humanities, with unusually broad geographic and chronological scope. The materials are very well handled using a variety of methods, the questions asked are interesting and important, and the entire discussion is of highest quality. -- Stanley Engerman, coauthor with Robert Fogel of Time on the Cross: The Economics of American Negro Slavery

About the Author

Orlando Patterson is John Cowles Professor of Sociology at Harvard University.

Reviews

Densely packed, closely argued, and highly controversial in its dissent from much of the scholarly conventional wisdom about the function and structure of slavery worldwide. Boston Globe There can be no doubt that this rich and learned book will reinvigorate debates that have tended to become too empirical and specialized. Patterson has helped to set out the direction for the next decades of interdisciplinary scholarship. -- David Brion Davis New York Review of Books