Slavery and Social Death: A Comparative Study

Rating:
Summary: Natal alienation
Review: Patterson's book is groundbreaking for many reasons. That is, unlike other scholars of slavery, Patterson does not solely restrict himself to describing slaves and the institutions of slavery by juridical terms (eg Moses Finley). What is crucial to understanding the station of slaves in all societies, African: the various tribal slave systems, European: Roman,Greek,French,Dutch and English;Asian: Jewish, Islam,Indian, Korean etc is that the slave is defined by the absence of power. The slave is compelled to forgo his or her rights and concede to the domination of the owner. The slave is powerless before his or her master.This absence of power on the part of the slave was common to all slave societies, least of all the American slave society who had embraced the Aristotlean notions of slavery and discarded the Romans' who saw slavery as an outcome of fate.

Rating:
Summary: A Fine compartive study of slave societies
Review: Patterson's book is one of the best books on slavery as an universal phenomena. There is simply no parallel to this vaunted study. That is, he reveals lucidly that slavery was an important factor among all civilizations, tribals groups among the pre Christian Europeans, Africans, and the Near and Far Easteners. Also, Patterson is one of the few to note that skin color was not the deciding factor of a slave. Wars, ransom, meagre economic circumstances all contributed to one's enslavement. Among the early African slaves in America, their hair symbolized their enslaved status. What he does not mention, though, is the fact that to understand the fullest implications of Nazi German racial laws, one must seek to understand the enslavement of the Slavs by the Germans.