Rating: 
Summary: sugar, transportation, finance and government contracts
Review: This book operates on so many levels, which complicates the author's task. I found the book a difficult read, but I appreciated his effort.
Before the slave trade, there was no business of transporting people over great distances. Yes, they were slaves, trapped in a holocaust-like snare; and yet, compensating for advances in technology, the business was similar in various ways to the mass migrations of the Irish and other europeans three centuries later. The abominable conditions of steerage on the great ocean liners paid for those fleets, inventing international tourism along the way.
Fascinating how european finance, insurance and commodities trade were transformed through the slave trade. The marshalling of so much information is confusing, yet one senses that this book will be around for some time.
Sugar, says Hugh Thomas, created the slave trade. Gold is pretty, but sugar was the real driving force.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent research sorely in need of editing
Review: This lengthy book is almost unreadable. Topics are treated in seemingly random order, sentences are tortured, and where meaningful chapter titles could have helped the reader navigate the 900+ pages, Thomas chose odd quotes as chapter titles which actually detracted from the reading experience. I made it through the book only because the information was so riveting. If only greater care has gone into editing it!
Rating:
Summary: Well-written, detailed book on the slave trade
Review: Thomas has written a detailed, comprehensive portrait of the slave trade. He emphasizes the perspective of the slave traders, rather than the slaves. He stresses the earlier, European roots, over the earlier Muslim traders, although he does not ignore the Arab and Moorish traders. He seems to focus a little more on the European than the American traders, but there is plenty of coverage of the latter. One of the strengths and weaknesses of the book is its voice, which is clinically detached from the material. I would expect this informative, but cool voice in a study of cotton trading. At times, Thomas' distance disarms the reader, but more often it facilitates the reader's access to this centuries-old, horrific business. Thomas indirectly addresses the question why England so quickly converted its national policy on slave trading. He portrays several individuals who worked long, hard, and seemingly against the odds for the abolition of slave trading, if not slavery itself, but I still wonder how this policy seems to have gained such widespread acceptance among those naval officers on whom fell the duty of enforcement. I would have appreciated more insights into their feelings about slave trading and naval interdiction. The length of the book probably did not permit the enlargement of its scope, but the reader seeking the slave's point of view may not be satisfied. Largely drawing from The Life of Olaudah Equiano, Thomas explains that there was little literature on which he could rely for this perspective. The book is well written and seems well researched. I most appreciated Thomas' quanitification of the enormity of the slave trade without overwhelming me with statistics. I wouldn't call it a page-turner, but I had trouble putting it down.
| 
