Slavery and Human ProgressPulitzer Prize-winner David Brion Davis here provides a penetrating survey of slavery and emancipation from ancient times to the twentieth century. His trenchant analysis puts the most recent international debates about freedom and human rights into much-needed perspective. Davis shows that slavery was once regarded as a form of human progress, playing a critical role in the expansion of the western world. It was not until the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that views of slavery as a retrograde institution gained far-reaching acceptance. Davis illuminates this momentous historical shift from "progressive" enslavement to "progressive" emancipation, ranging over an array of important developments--from the slave trade of early Muslims and Jews to twentieth-century debates over slavery in the League of Nations and the United Nations. In probing the intricate connections among slavery, emancipation, and the idea of progress, Davis sheds new light on two crucial issues: the human capacity for dignifying acts of oppression and the problem of implementing social change. |
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Contents
A Black Slave Revolt in the Fertile Crescent 58 | 5 |
Slavery and Imperial Expansion | 23 |
The Expansion of Islam and the Symbolism of Race | 32 |
Copyright | |
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Abolition of Slavery abolitionism abolitionists African slave trade American American Civil War ancient Anti-Slavery Society antislavery Arab Atlantic Slave Trade black slaves bondage Brazil Brazilian Britain British abolitionists British West British West Indies Buxton Cairnes captives Caribbean century Christian civilization Clarkson colonies Committee Cuba Cuban culture early economic Empire enslavement Europe European evangelical expansion force foreign free labor freedmen freedom French History Howick human Ibid idea of progress ideology important Indian slavery institution Islam islands Jamaica James Stephen Jewish Jews L'esclavage land later leaders liberal London Lord manumission markets Marranos Mediterranean ment merchants modern moral Muslim Negro North northern parliamentary plantation planters political population Portuguese Problem of Slavery protection Quaker race racial radical reformers religious Revolution Roman Saint Domingue slave emancipation slave labor Slave Power slaveholding South southern Spain Spanish sugar tion Verlinden West Indian West Indies Western Wilberforce William York Zanj