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Inhuman Bondage: The Rise and Fall of Slavery in the New World
Abstract
David Brion Davis has long been recognized as the leading authority on slavery in the Western World. His books have won every major history award--including the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award--and he has been universally praised for his prodigious research, his brilliant analytical skill, and his rich and powerful prose. Now, in Inhuman Bondage, Davis sums up a lifetime of insight in what Stanley L. Engerman calls "a monumental and magisterial book, the essential work on New World slavery for several decades to come." Davis begins with the dramatic Amistad case, which vividly highlights the international character of the Atlantic slave trade and the roles of the American judiciary, the presidency, the media, and of both black and white abolitionists. The heart of the book looks at slavery in the American South, describing black slaveholding planters, the rise of the Cotton Kingdom, the daily life of ordinary slaves, the highly destructive internal, long-distance slave trade, the sexual exploitation of slaves, the emergence of an African-American culture, and much more. But though centered on the United States, the book offers a global perspective spanning four continents. It is the only study of American slavery that reaches back to ancient foundations (discussing the classical and biblical justifications for chattel bondage) and also traces the long evolution of anti-black racism (as in the writings of David Hume and Emmanuel Kant, among many others). Equally important, it combines the subjects of slavery and abolitionism as very few books do, and it illuminates the meaning of nineteenth-century slave conspiracies and revolts, with a detailed comparison with 3 major revolts in the British Caribbean. It connects the actual life of slaves with the crucial place of slavery in American politics and stresses that slavery was integral to America's success as a nation--not a marginal enterprise. A definitive history by a writer deeply immersed in the subject, Inhuman Bondage offers a compelling narrative that links together the profits of slavery, the pain of the enslaved, and the legacy of racism. It is the ultimate portrait of the dark side of the American dream. Yet it offers an inspiring example as well--the story of how abolitionists, barely a fringe group in the 1770s, successfully fought, in the space of a hundred years, to defeat one of human history's greatest evils.
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In the citing paper
“While some scholars look beyond the example of transatlantic enslavement in conceptualising the institution more broadly (Brion Davis 2006; Finley 1998; Patterson 2018), its position as a paradigm is rarely questioned.”
From Collapsing the Boundaries Between De Jure and De Facto Slavery: The Foundations of Slavery Beyond the Transatlantic Frame (2020) · cites this paper as Brion Davis 2006
In the citing paper
“Despite the attribution of sub-human status, the legal status of slavery was never as simplistic as the categorisation of enslaved persons as simply chattel in law to the exclusion of the recognition of their humanity -the laws of man had to recognise human status in ways that chattel could never hold status (Brion Davis 2006, p 36; Davis 1949, p 64).”
From Collapsing the Boundaries Between De Jure and De Facto Slavery: The Foundations of Slavery Beyond the Transatlantic Frame (2020) · cites this paper as Brion Davis 2006, p 36
In the citing paper
“most scholars agree that the decision to carry out a revolt was a rare occurrence (Davis 2006; Genovese 1992; Rucker 2007; Weik 2012).”
From An Archaeology of Struggle: Material Remnants of a Double Consciousness in the American South and Danish Caribbean Communities (2019) · cites this paper as Davis 2006
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Metadata
- Authors
- Davis, D. B.
- Corresponding author
- Davis, David Brion
- Publisher
- Oxford University PressNew York, NY
- Published
- 2006-04-01
- OpenAlex
- W4388392605
- Cited by
- 460
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 23 · 2025: 51 · 2024: 23 · 2023: 12 · 2022: 12 · 2021: 47 · 2020: 43 · 2019: 63 · 2018: 12 · 2017: 36 · 2016: 9 · 2015: 6 · 2014: 18 · 2013: 25 · 2012: 30
- FWCI
- 23.25
- Type
- book
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › History › Colonialism, slavery, and trade
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Race, History, and American Society
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › History › History of Colonial Brazil
- Keywords
- slavery in the United States, transatlantic slave trade, abolitionism, Southern United States, cotton kingdom, slave life, African American culture, anti-Black racism, slave revolts, slave conspiracies, David Hume, Immanuel Kant
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