Rating: 
Summary: An heavy book, worth reading.
Review: A good book on a horrifying subject. On which I learned that, from the about 11 million slaves carried across the Atlantic between Africa, Europe, and the Americas, no less than 4.5 million was by Portuguese (and Brasilian) traders, about the double of the next larger carrier, Britain. In a country where everybody is so justly proud of the overseas discoveries of the 15th and 16th Centuries maybe we should pay a little more attention to the dark side of the enterprise.
Rating: 
Summary: Exhaustive
Review: An exhaustive history of the Atlantic slave trade, tracing through the trade's birth, growth, and ultimate death. The reader is in danger of being overwhelmed by the bulk of data and the cast of thousands. The rewards are well worth the risk, as Mr. Thomas teaches us of one of humankind's most contemptible accomplishments.
Rating:
Summary: Nine Months
Review: Arghhhh! This book took me nine months to get through! Still, this super-detailed, eye-opening account of the slave trade should be required reading for every high school senior in the world. I was suprised not only by the culpability of the Africans themselves but by that of Hume, Swift, Voltaire...the greatest champions of liberty our civilization has known! I can't believe I didn't know this stuff! I hope there will be a second edition that takes us up to the slavery currently going on in Mauritania and the Sudan.
Rating:
Summary: The Slave trade by Hugo Thomas -A perspective
Review: As a Nigerian currently in the U.S i am indeed deeply interested in slave trade,slavery and colonialism and it's effect on African people,s in Africa and the diaspora.Although it is a bulky book it is well researched and detailed giving an excellent perspective from a european historian's point of view.It starts from the first tentative contact between Africans and Europeans in the 15 th century to the gradual and then escalating involvement of various european countries and of course their few African collaborators in this heinous and repugnant crime to humanity,it also gives exacting detail about the gradual halt of the slave trade that is the trans atlantic because even today pockets of this still exist in Africa.In Conclusion there are no complete saints in this compelling narrative bur various degrees of villainy from severe to lesser forms.The victims were of course the slaves sold by a few of their fellow Africans the mordern Equivalent of which are the rulers of recent memory such as Idi Amin Dada,Bokassa ,Abacha.However there is hope with Obasanjo,Mandela ,Mbeki,Museveni.The heroes if i may say of this rupugnant,Humiliating practise include the Quakers,Oluadah Equiano,Frederick Douglas,La Rouche Foucald,Pitt,William Wilberforce,Clarkson,Harriet Tubman,Lord Palmerston,Sojourner Truth,montesquieu to name a few.This is a welcome addition to my library.
Rating:
Summary: An heavy book, worth reading.
Review: As a Southern historian, much of what I managed to read in this book, I already knew - in a general sense, of course. This book was able to put more details around my general knowledge on the subject, and for that I am grateful. Yes, the book is a difficult and orduous read, but well worth it. One thing still amazes me though... if so many were at fault, why is it that The South gets all the blame when at least the Confederate flag NEVER flew over a single ship that bore slaves from Africa, and Virginia was the first to attempt to outlaw slavery. Also, be it known that the Constitution of the Confederate States of America forbid ANY person in any Confederate State to import another single slave. I don't believe the US Constitution contained this until the 13th Amendment of 1865. Of course there was a law against it passed in 1808 by Congress, but nothing was done to enforce it. South Carolina itself passed a state law in the early 1800's forbidding any future importation of slaves, but repealed it about 15 years later because they didn't have the navy to patrol all the inlet waterways and the US government wouldn't supply assistance.
Rating: 
Summary: Why does only one get the blame?
Review: As a Southern historian, much of what I managed to read in this book, I already knew - in a general sense, of course. This book was able to put more details around my general knowledge on the subject, and for that I am grateful. Yes, the book is a difficult and orduous read, but well worth it. One thing still amazes me though... if so many were at fault, why is it that The South gets all the blame when at least the Confederate flag NEVER flew over a single ship that bore slaves from Africa, and Virginia was the first to attempt to outlaw slavery. Also, be it known that the Constitution of the Confederate States of America forbid ANY person in any Confederate State to import another single slave. I don't believe the US Constitution contained this until the 13th Amendment of 1865. Of course there was a law against it passed in 1808 by Congress, but nothing was done to enforce it. South Carolina itself passed a state law in the early 1800's forbidding any future importation of slaves, but repealed it about 15 years later because they didn't have the navy to patrol all the inlet waterways and the US government wouldn't supply assistance.
Rating:
Summary: All you DON'T know about slavery in America
Review: Fascinating, and will recalibrate all you think you know about slavery in America. You will learn: -Fewer than 5 per cent of the slaves taken from Africa were brought to this country. -Slaves were sold to European merchants by other Africans who had enslaved them in the first place. -Several of Africa's proudest empires were built on the sale of slaves. For centuries Africa's chief export was human beings. Slavery was an African institution long before it spread to the South, and there was no abolition movement to trouble it. When Europe banned the slave trade, African economies reeled. -Slavery still exists there, in Sudan and Mauritania and probably elsewhere. -In the Arab world African slaves were highly prized as eunuchs, and many young African men died in the process. The prevalence of eunuchs probably explains why African slavery didn't leave the Arab world with a "race problem." Given this history, it's ironic that so many American blacks adopt Arab names to spite the white man and to achieve a supposedly independent "identity." Recommended
Rating:
Summary: highly informative but not well organized
Review: I learned a great deal about the Atlantic slave trade from this book. Among other things,I hadn't realized how extensive the English involvement in the trade was or that there were slaves in Europe itself, even in the UK in the 18th century. The book is long in number of pages but short on summary and analysis. It has mind-numbing chapters of detail about individual slavers, but rarely a coherent description of where things stood at a given point in time. Also it would be helpful to be more familiar than I was with the general history of the West Indies, particularly the British West Indies, and with Spanish and Portuguese colonialism in the Americas because the book seems to assume that readers don't need much background on these topics. I thought it picked up speed in later chapters when it began talking about the struggles in Europe, particularly the UK, to end the slave trade - here it seemed like the author was on more familiar ground dealing with British politics, conflicts between European countries and so forth. The organization of the book is hard to follow and the chapter titles are not very helpful, so going back and trying to find information is quite difficult. The information in the book is fascinating, however, so it is still well worth reading.
Rating:
Summary: About European's rendering their conscience numb!
Review: I think this is a magnificient book, even necessary reading - because it shows how conscience was compromised for Popes, and Royalty, and my almost everyone because there was money to be made. Even people of such astounding insight as Thomas Jefferson was blinded to the race issue - perhaps because he was always half broke! The book helped me to realise, as an Australian, how the United States has been at the cutting edge of conscience to obliterate the indignity of racial prejudice. The europeans would not allow slavery in europe, but they dumpted slaves in their colonies - but it was the United States where conscience has gradually overcome economics to systematically the inhumanity of slavery and racial prejudice. Of course there is a long way and I have never heard Americans praise them selves. They should. There is still a long way to go because ignorance is a self perpetuating phenomena. A great book
Rating:
Summary: very detailed descriptions, but no analysis
Review: I won't repeat the limitations cited by the other reviewers. In a seminar on the trans-Atantic slave trade, we tried to synthesize and generalize major patterns by place (Europe, Africa, Americas; cities; countries; regions), class (European and African elites; ship crews; slaves, African populations), and race (Europeans, Arabs, Africans) from the detailed descriptions in The Slave Trade. Although we occasionally did have some substantial discussions, the book is simply so badly written, repetitive, disorganized by years, places, personalities, and organizations; and the index so limited to be useless to find the many facts expressed in the book that by the end of the semester we were not only frustrated but also unable to synthesize the vast array of information into any significant number of tables, graphs, and maps. This book is a testimony to inadequacy of the historical descriptive style and of the publisher to let such a poorly written book be printed. Profoundly important topics, such as slavery, do not in and of themselves make worthwhile publications.
|
