From slavery to freedom : comparative studies in the rise and fall of Atlantic slavery / Seymour Drescher ; foreword by Stanley L. Engerman.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Drescher, Seymour.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Slavery--Great Britain--History.

Slavery.

Slavery--United States--History.

History.

United States.

Slave trade--Great Britain--History.

Slave trade.

Great Britain.

Slave trade--United States--History.

Great Britain--Politics and government.

Politics and government.

Great Britain--Race relations.

Race relations.

United States--Politics and government.

United States--Race relations.

Physical Description:

xxv, 454 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

New York : New York University Press, 1999.

Summary:

Spanning four decades of debate on slavery and antislavery, this provocative volume by leading historian Seymour Drescher provides an in-depth comparative analysis of the transatlantic slave trade and abolition movements of nineteenth-century Europe and the Americas, and their ongoing impact on twentieth-century politics and race relations.

Leading up to his influential argument that the end of slavery was not due to economic decline, but rather caused it, Drescher's early analyses focus on the dynamic interaction of economic modernization, religion, and politics in early industrial nations. Challenging the reigning historical models, Drescher expands the scope of abolition scholarship to include such overlooked contributors to the slave question as planters, merchants, Parliament, abolitionist Saints, and the working classes.

More recently, Drescher has turned his attention to the compelling new questions arising from Black-Jewish relations in the United States, the role of Jews in the Atlantic slave trade, and the comparative barbarism of two great moral evils in recent world history: slavery and the holocaust.

Valuable both for the vast timespan covered and its wide geographic range, From Slavery to Freedom represents a major contribution to the study of slavery and abolition by one of its most distinguished historians.

Contents:

1 Capitalism and Abolition: Values and Forces in Britain, 1783-1814 (1976) 5

2 Two Variants of Anti-Slavery: Religious Organization and Social Mobilization in Britain and France, 1780-1870 (1980) 35

3 Public Opinion and the Destruction of British Colonial Slavery (1982) 57

4 The Decline Thesis of British Slavery since Econocide (1986) 87

5 Brazilian Abolition in Comparative Perspective (1988) 119

6 British Way, French Way: Opinion Building and Revolution in the Second French Slave Emancipation (1991) 158

7 The Long Goodbye: Dutch Capitalism and Antislavery in Comparative Perspective (1994) 196

8 Servile Insurrection and John Brown's Body in Europe (1993) 235

9 The Ending of the Slave Trade and the Evolution of European Scientific Racism (1990) 275

10 The Atlantic Slave Trade and the Holocaust: A Comparative Analysis (1996) 312

11 The Role of Jews in the Transatlantic Slave Trade (1993) 339

12 Eric Williams: British Capitalism and British Slavery (1987) 355

13 Capitalism and Slavery after Fifty Years (1997) 379

14 Free Labor vs Slave Labor: The British and Caribbean Cases (1999) 399.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

081471918X

OCLC:

39897280