Lives In Crisis: The African-American Slave Trade

Between 1500 and 1870, some 12 million captives were shipped from Africa, destined for sale in the New World. African-American slavery surpassed any previous slave system, both in its size and in the intensity with which it exploited slave labour.

This book explains how the Atlantic slave trade and slavery in the Americas grew to such proportions, and how Europeans and white North Americans justified this to themselves. It examines the impact of the slave trade on Africa, and the suffering and resistance of the slaves themselves.

Finally, it describes how the Atlantic slave trade and American slavery were abolished, and looks at the long shadow that slavery has cast down to the present day.