Slavery: A World History

by Milton Meltzer

Slavery is not and has never been a "peculiar institution," but one that is deeply rooted in the history and economy of most countries. Although it has flourished in some periods and declined in others, human bondage for profit has never been eradicated completely.




In A World History renowned author Milton Meltzer traces slavery from its origins in prehistoric hunting societies; through the boom in slave trading that reached its peak in the United States with a pre-Civil War slave population of 4,000,000; through the forced labor under the Nazi regime and in the Soviet gulags; and finally to its widespread practice in many countries today, such as the debt bondage that miners endure in Brazil or the prostitution into which women are sold in Thailand.





In this detailed, compassionate account, readers will learn how slavery arose, what forms it takes, what roles slaves have performed in their societies, what everyday existence is like for those enchained, and what can be done to end the degrading practice of slavery.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, World History, Race, Politics

583 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1971

About the author

Milton Meltzer wrote 110 books, five of which were nominated for the National Book Award. With Langston Hughes, he co-authored A Pictorial History of Black Americans, now in its sixth edition. He received the 2001 Laura Ingalls Wilder Award for his contribution to children's literature, the 1986 Jane Addams Peace Association Children's Book Award, and the 2000 Regina Medal. He died in New York City of esophageal cancer at age 94.

Reviews

[Ebookwormy1 · Rating 2 out of 5]

When I checked this volume out from the library, I was disappointed to see several chapters about slavery in the US checked. This disappointment deepened when I arrived at these later chapters and couldn't help but notice the emergence of orange highlighter. The whole reason for a work of this scope, and the reason I was interest in the title, is to put slavery in the context of history - something the pencil checks and orange highlights negated by focusing merely on a few chapters.

While the first volume is worthy of 3+ stars, "Slavery: A World History" falls apart in the second volume. For example, emotional descriptions of the Spanish use of Native American and African slaves in the mines of South America are presented. What makes this particularly disappointing is that the very same author, earlier in volume one, documented the conditions under which SPANISH slaves mined their country under the Romans without the colorful commentary. Ancient times being what they were, the conditions of Spanish slavery were in fact, even worse than the South American experience hundreds of years later. Yet, because we have much more documentation on the Spanish use of slaves in the New World, this chapter is given a much more sensational treatment.

And herein lies the problem. The main take away is that the revolution of the printing press produced volumes of empathetic documentation of recent history's horrors that is lacking for previous times and empires that didn't have either the technology or the theological impetus to document their atrocities - yet brutally consumed lives without such commentary or censure.

The author seems unable to recognize this unequal playing field and commits the common error of minimizing the oppression of undocumented empires (Assyria, Egypt, Babylonia, Rome, the Far East, Africa, South America) and magnifying the oppression of documented empires (specifically the Europeans and their colonies). Working from that foundational flaw, the sparse analysis lacks credibility, not to mention a fundamental depth.

In addition, the later chapters on "Slavery Today" are incredibly weak and disorganized. They read like a convoluted summary of the UN reports Meltzer cites as his primary source.

The reality is that all great empires on this planet have indulged in slavery. Though they might have used different forms, the idea of cheap, enslaved labor that denied large segments of the population their autonomy is the same. The other brutal reality is that slavery, in the form of human trafficking, bond labor and ritual servitude still exists today. The demands of some oppress the vulnerable families and children among us. Another reality is that most of the record of slavery, as both an institution and individual experience, has been done by abolitionists - concentrated in western civilization. We lack documentation of ancient forced labor because people simply wanted to avoid it and didn't invest resources to document and fight against the institution.

But there is good news. Reading between the lines, it seems the percentage of population enslaved has fallen as technologies have advanced, giving more people the freedom to direct their own life path.

I would love to read a book that documents these realities faithfully, and then provides some real analysis about where we are in fighting this institution. I would also like to see some analysis on what the social, political, economic and even religious factors are that contribute to slavery. Not simply the supply (we all know the poor are more likely to end up in slavery), but the demand. We have a lot of history to draw from. Which cultures or civilizations have embraced slavery to the greatest degree and what commonalities seem to promote the practice? Is racism really a driving factor (as it was in the USA) or is racism within races just as powerful (for example, the caste system in India or the feudal system in Europe or Japan). Is the degradation of a class of people necessary for the slave master mindset or is it something that develops as slavery is implemented? What about abolition? What can we learn about the ideas, events and civic changes that brought about the condemnation, legislation and litigation against slavery?

My final thought after trudging through the second volume of this work was: In the light of centuries of oppression, how can anyone deny that mankind has an innate flaw rendering him sinful?

For more information, see this brief article,
http://www.aei.org/publication/thomas...

For a briefer, though more robust, treatment of slavery, see
Race & Culture, Thomas Sowell, 1995
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

For a better look at American slavery specifically, see
The 10 Big Lies About America, Michael Medved, 2008
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Derek · Rating 3 out of 5]

The catalyst for reading this book was a curiosity about how slavery, a practice which was completely blind to race in antiquity, became something almost entirely race based (at least in The West) by the eighteenth century. It provided some hints to the possible answer (though less than a couple of other books I'd recently read which only tangentially touched on slavery), but was overall rather disappointing for a number of reasons.

First, the title. *Slavery: a World History.* I was incredibly disappointed to find that the primary focus of the book was slavery in the ancient Classical Middle East and Mediterranean world, then Christian Europe, and then the US. In the first section of the book, which supposedly focused on slavery from human history up through the medieval world, the only mention of Asia, Africa, and the Americas was as a source for more exotic slaves in Europe. Slavery in the traditional American and African societies are briefly touched only as preambles to discussing the European influence of slavery in those regions as colonized the former and exploited the latter as a source for slaves. Asia is given even less, what feels like a hasty and even briefer addendum at the end of the section on historical slavery. It seems extremely ethnocentric and vain to boast of being a world history when you virtually dismiss the history of three continents and focus only on a Eurocentric perspective.

Second, having done a fair amount of reading on ancient history, I was able to identify a number of statements in the earlier chapters on ancient history that were factually inaccurate. It leads me to be a bit skeptical of the work's veracity, obviously a crucial issue when it comes to a history. Meltzer's academic expertise is clearly more grounded in more modern history, and has done quite a bit of work on US black history, so I'm willing to trust him a bit more in the later sections of the book. But it hurts the credibility of the work overall when obvious factual errors are there so early on.

Thirdly, the complete lack of citations. A history book should point to where its information came from—especially when some of the research seems dubious. The book did include a fairly extensive bibliography, which was very welcome. It did not, however, make up for the complete lack of footnotes, endnotes, or other citations.

Fourth, though perhaps related to the second point, a good deal of the writing in the earlier portions seem a bit overly simplistic, as if aimed at younger readers. It was annoying.

That all said, the detail and professionalism seemed to improve as the book moved into what is more familiar ground for Meltzer. Though not cited, more quotations of primary sources were used. More details were fleshed out. It felt more trustworthy, though the skepticism earlier set off was not entirely laid to rest.

In those later eras, through the use of first-hand accounts and writings, quite a harrowing picture was painted. It's one thing to rationally understand why slavery is terrible. At that point, good as it is to rationally and theoretically understand, there is still a great distance between you and the horror. First-hand accounts make it much more real and raw.

I appreciated Meltzer's inclusion of other forms of coercive control in this discussion, things like serfdom and the forces labor camps of the autocracies of the twentieth century. De facto slavery should be understood for what it is.

I gained some valid knowledge on the subject. I wish I could have obtained it from another source more expansive and a bit more trustworthy.

[Abigail · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book as part of research I'm doing for a project, and I found it super helpful. As an American, it's easy for me to box "slavery" under one or two rather large and clunky boxes, but it's important to recognize and understand that slavery has existed in a variety of forms throughout history and the world. While there were times that I wanted more information on certain specifics and sometimes wanted more depth, finesse, or differentiation (a fault Meltzer admits in part himself in the preface given the sheer magnitude of the subject), on the whole I thought this book was a well done overview of the topic that challenged my understanding, views, emotions, and preconceptions throughout. Reading this book has been helpful not only in my research (like how eskimos have so many words for snow, I find I now have a greater capacity to speak about this topic), but also in waking me up more to the reality of the world I live in and the variety of ways these systems still survive today (something I was aware of to some degree, but now understand more fully). I wish I would have had this more rounded understanding when I was in school.

[Thom DeLair]

Economic philosophers often talk about the importance of choice in economic models. Men like Smith or Hayak discuss the importance of choice in shaping the market place for creating the best outcomes. Slavery, of course, is the opposite of choice. Being a slave means not having choices. I chose to read this book because I wanted to consider the history of economic systems and how much those systems are truly shaped by choice versus by the slave system. Now, this book is clearly not about economic models or analysis on how social systems are developed. From what I understand, there isn’t quite a book out there that does that, so this one had to do for now, to a least give a broad overview of slavery in Western history.

The book begins in the ancient world. Certain civilizations had slavery much more central to their economic and social system than others. It was central for ancient Mesopotamia but not central for ancient Egypt. The Greeks, and even more so the Romans, relied heavily on slave labor. One even gets the notion that the Roman Empire fell apart because it could not acquire more slaves through expansion.

Some have suggested that innovation would have never occurred without enslavement. The thinking goes something like, with slave or forced labor, it leaves an aristocratic class the time to create more innovations. Although the Harappa culture of the Indus Valley is poorly understood, they had many innovations like plumbing and dentists before other cultures and the relative similar size of their dwellings suggests that there was much less social stratification, ie slavery was not central to their system. This is speculation, but I don’t think we need to say it’s a given that slavery was a necessary evil. Perhaps societies innovate in a more productive way when there is less slavery.

During the Middle Ages, as Europe decentralized, slavery declined but never totally went away. This was not because of humanitarianism or Christianity but because it was more in the self-interest of the master to make the underlings serfs rather than slaves. No major religion totally denounces slavery. Slaves fit the bill of Jesus’ beatitudes but the gospels say nothing of him decrying the systemic practice. He also tells parables of the righteous and dutiful slaves, compliance. Judaism has jubilees which free debt slaves every seven years but this of course suggests that there are times when owning slaves is acceptable, in six year intervals. Islam praises those who manumit their slaves but also condones taking war captives as slaves during holy wars.

As European colonization began, a more racial component to slavery emerged. The book devotes a large number of chapters to American slavery, from the colonial period to the Civil War. I suspected this was largely because as crucial as it has been to shaping civilization, as we know it today, there is little information about it in many corners of the world. There is quite a lot written about American slavery though.

This book provides an overview with lots of holes to a global narrative. It’s not so much the author’s fault in my opinion, but more so the lack of research into such a depressing and overwhelming topic. Though it’s much harder to be a slave than to learn about it. As the book says, pretty much every nation today condemns slavery but still has some aspect of forced labor. Meltzer’s suggestions for combating slavery are to raise awareness. There’s nothing wrong with that but it also seems that we lack a full understanding of how slavery contributes to the global economy today and how it is ingrained into the economic structure.

[Grommit · Rating 5 out of 5]

Comprehensive two-volume survey of slavery's history around the world.
The first volume follows the traditional western civilization's timeline: Mesopotamia (Iraq), Greece, Rome, Egypt, Israel, etc.
The second volume follows the timeline of the Renaissance up to current day (the book was updated in 1993) and includes the Africa slave trade, all the way through North America, South America, and even touches on Russia and neighbors. In the end, no nation state is left out.
We learn that slavery existed everywhere, and was practiced by everyone. Religion was not a deterrent. Primary source of slaves was war...lose the war and you were enslaved (or killed). Related source was the slave commerce (buy, sell), especially as practiced in Africa, Asia, and later North America, in an effort to find the labor needed to run farms, mines, and related businesses. And, yes, even the native American Indians practiced slavery on each other before Europeans traveled to America in numbers. Curiously, the mighty Apache seemed to be considered easy targets.
Treatment of slaves differed...in some cases slavery was a death sentence, while in others it was possible to break the chains and rise in society.
We know that slavery is currently a topic fraught with emotion and anger. For the most part, Meltzer walks an objective path through the topic. But, in a few places, he seems to editorialize beyond the actual facts, but this is a relatively minor digression.
Fascinating insights about the North Africa pirates pillaging the Mediterranean slave trade...until the Roman military was invoked to stop it.
And, yes, slavery still exists today.

[Mark A Swenson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very broad reaching in scope, easy to read, some parts were interesting and enlightening. A good portion of it wasn't new material for me, however.

I'm glad to have read it, and I recommend it, however I wish it had some more detailed information (I realize that there might not be more detailed information on this topc for Mr Meltzer to have included, however)

[Kevin Keating · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a well-written and documented overview of slavery from all eras and in all geographies where the author has known it to exist . I learned a ton and it really opened my eyes. It's strange that we overlook all of the slavery everywhere else, past and present and only focus on ourselves as if the entire world abolished slavery in 1865. Read it

[George L · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you a looking for a survey history of slavery, this is an excellent resource. Melzer emphasizes that slavery was present in nearly all societies up until the 1800s. He explains how slavery was transported to South and North America by the Portuguese, by the Spanish, and then by other Europeans. This is an excellent book for those looking to get the big picture on slavery and its origins.

[Travis Wise · Rating 2 out of 5]

A lot of words put into producing something so mediocre. Chronicles quite a bit (though, a far cry from “A World History” of slavery… try “A Western History”… no surprise), but analyzes very little. If it weren’t 500+ pages, maybe I could lie to myself that it deserves 3 stars on ambition alone. No citations either, but that’s the least of this book’s worries.

[Nancy George · Rating 4 out of 5]

A long book but it's a long history ..a sad history that continues even today. Well worth the read.

[Brian James · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good, broad overview of the world history of slavery in different cultures in two separate volumes.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

This volume - highly "readable" as compared with the usual historical account - gets a 5-star rating from me because it is as close as anything I have found to a politically-neutral yet factual account of the history of slavery. In all its permutations from ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome, Africa, Europe and Asia to the "New World" of the Americas, slavery is and has always been a brutal oppression of mankind against mankind. Skin color is beside the point - slavery has largely had nothing to do with skin color, much more to do with power, control, and the using of captive human beings to accomplish the goals, desires, work and whims of the oppressor.

This volume is, IMO, a must-read for those who need or want to understand the full history of mankind on the earth.

[Nick Imrie · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent introduction to the topic; I'm glad I started here. The writing is clear and understandable; it's definitely academic, but not as dry as it could have been. The chapters are nice and short, each giving a brief over-view of a particular time and place. It's never an easy read, especially when covering the horrific sadism of masters through-out history, and especially awkward (as a Brit) to read of the hypocrisy and horrors perpetrated by the British and their descendents.
Most books on slavery are either about ancient Greece and Rome or the United States. This book certainly focused on Rome and the Americas, but I learnt more than I expected other societies. I was especially interested to read about slavery as it was practised in many African societies before the arrival of European traders, and how centuries of increasing demand for slaves from European and Arab traders destroyed the civilisations of Africa as it became more and more profitable for Africans to abandon trade and turn to raiding their neighbours. There was also an interesting comment about the Native tribes of America, some of whom also took up plantation slavery like the white Americans. I'd never heard anything of that before!
There was very little about slavery in the far east until the final chapters discussing modern day slavery. This is a pity because there doesn't seem to much written on the subject in English, and it must be interesting, given how much longer civilisation has been flourishing in China and India than in Europe.

[Sylvia · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a shallow and broad discussion of the institution of human slavery, with little analysis but lots of pictures and primary sources. If I were in high school and writing an essay about slavery in the Roman Empire or something, this would have been PERFECT: easy to read, good to quote, very well sourced.

As it stands, this is just too shallow for me--I would like a bit more analysis of slavery's forms throughout history and how it develops in different economic, geographic, and political environments. A strong thesis about slavery, human nature and human society would have given the book a unity and conceptual structure. There were tantalizing hints here and there, but mostly it was just a brief factual report on slavery in different places. I feel like Meltzer had the chops to make it work but consciously chose to keep this work as simple and free of interpretation as he possibly could.

Nonetheless, this is a good starting point for more in-depth research on the topic, and it included plenty of pictures and quotes that made things more vivid. Again, if I were trying to write a report or do a powerpoint presentation, this book would be a godsend. For casual reading by history-lovers, though, look for something deeper.

[Jay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Human beings are depraved.

Serves well as a broad overview. It's probably about 400 pages not counting the pictures. Unfortunately there are few citations and no footnotes.

[Lauren · Rating 3 out of 5]

While this book is a valuable resource on the history of slavery, its title is misleading. Rather than being a "world history", it instead provides information about several select areas around the world, with a mostly Eurocentric view. Most areas of the world are left out in this supposed world history of slavery, such as the Americas during Pre-Columbian times.

[Jeff Sulman]

A decent book for somebody wanting a quick overview of the history of slavery. No analysis just the facts. The format reminded me of a high school history book with small sections, large headers and lots of full/half page pictures. For somebody who wants do dig deeper into the history of the topic and its social, economic, spiritual and moral costs, look elsewhere.

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very basic prose, but a comprehensive and useful world survey.

[Jeff Ford · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a major undertaking. Only made it through Roman Slavery before it was due at the library. I found it enlightening but tedious. I will return to it when I am feeling ambitious.

[Myra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thorough. Informative.