Description: This survey is a synthesis of the economic, social, cultural, and political history of the Atlantic slave trade, providing the general reader with a basic understanding of the current state of scholarly knowledge of forced African migration and compares this knowledge to popular beliefs. The Atlantic Slave Trade examines the four hundred years of Atlantic slave trade, covering the West and East African experiences, as well as all the American colonies and republics that obtained slaves from Africa. It outlines both the common features of this trade and the local differences that developed. It discusses the slave trade's economics, politics, demographic impact, and cultural implications in relationship to Africa as well as America. Finally, it places the slave trade in the context of world trade and examines the role it played in the growing relationship between Asia, Africa, Europe, and America. This new edition incorporates the latest findings of the last decade in slave trade studies carried out in Europe and America. It also includes new data on the slave trade voyages which have just recently been made available to the public.
Brief description: Herbert S. Klein is the author of 22 books and 155 articles in several languages on Latin America and comparative themes in social and economic history. Among these books are The Middle Passage: Comparative Studies in the Atlantic Slave Trade (1978) and four studies of slavery, the most recent of which are Slavery and the Economy of São Paulo, 1750-1850 (co-author, 2003), African Slavery in Latin America and the Caribbean (co-author, 2008), and Slavery in Brazil (co-author, 2009), as well as four books on Bolivian history, including A Concise History of Bolivia (2003). He has also published books on such diverse themes as The American Finances of the Spanish Empire, 1680-1809 (1998) and A Population History of the United States (2004).
Review Quotes: "The book is a masterpiece of economic history, and as long as Klein is presenting economic arguments, he is unmatched. The chapters on the business organization of the slave trade, especially its European end, the disposition of slaves in the Americas, and the Middle Passage are finely tuned, clearly written, and deploy the latest scholarship. Indeed, in making generalizations, Klein goes beyond what can be learned simply by consulting the latest scholarship. The international dimension of the trade, the multiplicity of nationalities involved, and its huge intercontinental scope are easily grasped by an approach in which Klein is as comfortable with the operations of the Dutch and Danish shippers as he is with the English. Indeed, one of Klein's strong suits is that he does not simply generalize from the English trade, but is sensitive to the nuances of the trade from all shippers and consumers." - John Thornton, The International History Review