Slavery and Social Death

Orlando Patterson

Harvard University Press, 1982 - Social Science - 511 pages

This is the first full-scale comparative study of the nature of slavery. In a work of prodigious scholarship and enormous breadth, which draws on the tribal, ancient, premodern, and modern worlds, Orlando Patterson discusses the internal dynamics of slavery in sixty-six societies over time. These include Greece and Rome, medieval Europe, China, Korea, the Islamic kingdoms, Africa, the Caribbean islands, and the American South. Slavery is shown to he a parasitic relationship between master and slave, invariably entailing the violent domination of a natally alienated, or socially dead, person. The phenomenon of slavery as an institution, the author argues. is a single process of recruitment, incorporation on the margin of society, and eventual manumission or death.

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Review: Slavery and Social Death: A Comparative Study

User Review  - Jon Panofsky - Goodreads

The only reason that I am giving this book 3 stars and no lower, is because it IS the standard work on the subject. While very informative, this book is dreadfully tough to get through. Patterson's ...

About the author

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

Bibliographic information

• Title: Slavery and Social Death; ACLS Humanities E-Book; History e-book project
• Author: Orlando Patterson
• Edition: illustrated, reprint, revised
• Publisher: Harvard University Press, 1982
• ISBN: 067481083X, 9780674810839
• Length: 511 pages
• Subjects: Social Science / Slavery; Social Science / Sociology / General