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The Problem of Slavery
The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Emancipation
Winner of the 2014 National Book Critics Circle Award for General Nonfiction
Shortlisted for the 2014 Cundill Prize in Historical Literature
From the revered historian, the long-awaited conclusion of the magisterial history of slavery and emancipation in Western culture that has been nearly fifty years in the making.
David Brion Davis is one of the foremost historians of the twentieth century, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, the Bancroft Prize, and nearly every award given by the historical profession. Now, with The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Emancipation, Davis brings his staggeringly ambitious, prizewinning trilogy on slavery in Western culture to a close. Once again, Davis offers original and penetrating insights into what slavery and emancipation meant to Americans. He explores how the Haitian Revolution respectively terrified and inspired white and black Americans, hovering over the antislavery debates like a bloodstained ghost, and he offers a surprising analysis of the complex and misunderstood significance of colonization—the project to move freed slaves back to Africa—to members of both races and all political persuasions. He vividly portrays the dehumanizing impact of slavery, as well as the generally unrecognized importance of freed slaves to abolition. Most of all, Davis presents the age of emancipation as a model for reform and as probably the greatest landmark of willed moral progress in human history.
This is a monumental and harrowing undertaking following the century of struggle, rebellion, and warfare that led to the eradication of slavery in the new world. An in-depth investigation, a rigorous colloquy of ideas, ranging from Frederick Douglass to Barack Obama, from British industrial “wage slavery” to the Chicago World’s Fair, The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Emancipation is a brilliant conclusion to one of the great works of American history. Above all, Davis captures how America wrestled with demons of its own making, and moved forward.
Shortlisted for the 2014 Cundill Prize in Historical Literature
From the revered historian, the long-awaited conclusion of the magisterial history of slavery and emancipation in Western culture that has been nearly fifty years in the making.
David Brion Davis is one of the foremost historians of the twentieth century, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, the Bancroft Prize, and nearly every award given by the historical profession. Now, with The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Emancipation, Davis brings his staggeringly ambitious, prizewinning trilogy on slavery in Western culture to a close. Once again, Davis offers original and penetrating insights into what slavery and emancipation meant to Americans. He explores how the Haitian Revolution respectively terrified and inspired white and black Americans, hovering over the antislavery debates like a bloodstained ghost, and he offers a surprising analysis of the complex and misunderstood significance of colonization—the project to move freed slaves back to Africa—to members of both races and all political persuasions. He vividly portrays the dehumanizing impact of slavery, as well as the generally unrecognized importance of freed slaves to abolition. Most of all, Davis presents the age of emancipation as a model for reform and as probably the greatest landmark of willed moral progress in human history.
This is a monumental and harrowing undertaking following the century of struggle, rebellion, and warfare that led to the eradication of slavery in the new world. An in-depth investigation, a rigorous colloquy of ideas, ranging from Frederick Douglass to Barack Obama, from British industrial “wage slavery” to the Chicago World’s Fair, The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Emancipation is a brilliant conclusion to one of the great works of American history. Above all, Davis captures how America wrestled with demons of its own making, and moved forward.
448 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2014
28 people are currently reading
877 people want to read
About the author
David Brion Davis
43 books47 followersDavid Brion Davis was an American historian and authority on slavery and abolition in the Western world. He was the Sterling Professor of History Emeritus at Yale University, and founder and Director Emeritus of Yale’s Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition. He was a foremost intellectual and cultural historian. The author and editor of 17 books, and frequent contributor to The New York Review of Books, Davis played a principal role in explaining the latest historiography to a broad audience. His books emphasized religious and ideological links among material conditions, political interests, and new political values.
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
August 6, 2020
I have now read 2/3 books of the Problem of Slavery trilogy, having not read the Age of Revolutions one, which for some reason is mad expensive to buy. This book is fascinating, but quite different from the Problem of Slavery in Western Culture book, which is far more thorough and linear. This book is more of a thematic exploration of several major themes and problems of the Age of Emancipation, starting roughly with the Haitian Revolution and ending with the demise of Brazilian Slavery.
The Problem of Slavery refers to the philosophical, social, and moral paradox of treating a human being as an animal or a peace of property, of trying to make a person with a will and personality of his/her own into an extension of another person's will. There are numerous paradoxes wrapped up in this issue, but the most important one Davis identifies is the following circular logic: certain groups are identified as "natural slaves," usually because they have already been enslaved, and then the degradation imposed on them by the slaveholders is taken as evidence of the naturalness of their enslavement. In this book, Davis explores how slaveholders animalized their slaves, trying to reduce them to a status of zero dignity and individual will. I for one thought the parallels with 20th century totalitarian states here were fascinating in terms of the assertion of absolute authority.
This book would be more accurately titled "The Problem of Emancipation in the Age of Emancipation," even though that's a terrible title, obviously. I say this because the main theme Davis explores is the various debates over what would happen if the slaves were emancipated. The slaves' own degradation, imposed from above, was taken by many in the colonizationist movement as evidence that slaves would have to be sent back to Africa if they were freed because they had become too degraded by slavery and would continue to be inhibited by racism if they stayed in the US. The terror over the Haitian Revolution and the struggles of the early Haitian state, as well as the poverty and social problems of the free black communities, only reinforced this thinking. Davis mildly rehabilitates the ACS by arguing that they rarely saw black "inferiority" as innate but rather a product of environmental differences; thus, they could achieve civilizational advancement if freed from white oppression and given a new start in their "natural" climate. I think this book convinced me to take colonizationism more seriously as a political movement and not just a pipe dream of people who couldn't envision a biracial society.
Davis shows that this really was the mainstream anti-slavery position well into the 1820s, and he highlights the crucial role of black abolitionists in protesting the ACS and convincing key abolitionist leaders like Garrison that colonization was evil and impractical. Leaders like McCune, Walker, and Garnet were crucial in opening the split between the ACS and the immediatist abolitionists as well as setting the groundwork for imagining a functioning, tolerant biracial society (AA thinkers have almost always been the pioneers in this). This was a totally new way of thinking about abolitionism, and I liked the sections that traced how British abolitionism (undoubtedly the most successful abolitionist movement in world history) affected the American course.
Overall this is a fascinating and not terribly long book, but it isn't for everyone. If you haven't read a few more introductory works on pre-Civil War slavery and politics, a lot of this book with be over your head, as Davis doesn't slow down all that much to provide the background. Still, Davis is easily one of the best historians at investigating these thorny problems and making connections across space and time; you don't even have to be terribly interested in slavery to enjoy following his crisp, incisive argumentation.
The Problem of Slavery refers to the philosophical, social, and moral paradox of treating a human being as an animal or a peace of property, of trying to make a person with a will and personality of his/her own into an extension of another person's will. There are numerous paradoxes wrapped up in this issue, but the most important one Davis identifies is the following circular logic: certain groups are identified as "natural slaves," usually because they have already been enslaved, and then the degradation imposed on them by the slaveholders is taken as evidence of the naturalness of their enslavement. In this book, Davis explores how slaveholders animalized their slaves, trying to reduce them to a status of zero dignity and individual will. I for one thought the parallels with 20th century totalitarian states here were fascinating in terms of the assertion of absolute authority.
This book would be more accurately titled "The Problem of Emancipation in the Age of Emancipation," even though that's a terrible title, obviously. I say this because the main theme Davis explores is the various debates over what would happen if the slaves were emancipated. The slaves' own degradation, imposed from above, was taken by many in the colonizationist movement as evidence that slaves would have to be sent back to Africa if they were freed because they had become too degraded by slavery and would continue to be inhibited by racism if they stayed in the US. The terror over the Haitian Revolution and the struggles of the early Haitian state, as well as the poverty and social problems of the free black communities, only reinforced this thinking. Davis mildly rehabilitates the ACS by arguing that they rarely saw black "inferiority" as innate but rather a product of environmental differences; thus, they could achieve civilizational advancement if freed from white oppression and given a new start in their "natural" climate. I think this book convinced me to take colonizationism more seriously as a political movement and not just a pipe dream of people who couldn't envision a biracial society.
Davis shows that this really was the mainstream anti-slavery position well into the 1820s, and he highlights the crucial role of black abolitionists in protesting the ACS and convincing key abolitionist leaders like Garrison that colonization was evil and impractical. Leaders like McCune, Walker, and Garnet were crucial in opening the split between the ACS and the immediatist abolitionists as well as setting the groundwork for imagining a functioning, tolerant biracial society (AA thinkers have almost always been the pioneers in this). This was a totally new way of thinking about abolitionism, and I liked the sections that traced how British abolitionism (undoubtedly the most successful abolitionist movement in world history) affected the American course.
Overall this is a fascinating and not terribly long book, but it isn't for everyone. If you haven't read a few more introductory works on pre-Civil War slavery and politics, a lot of this book with be over your head, as Davis doesn't slow down all that much to provide the background. Still, Davis is easily one of the best historians at investigating these thorny problems and making connections across space and time; you don't even have to be terribly interested in slavery to enjoy following his crisp, incisive argumentation.
August 17, 2021
This is the second of a trilogy by historian Davis, and one that had even more profound affect on me than the one examining slavery in western culture. He explores the British emancipation of slaves in the West Indies in 1834 and its influence on American abolitionists. There was an inherent irony of the two nations: the Americans had democracy while chattel slavery existed for 4 million people and the British had a monarchy with few individual freedoms but had emancipation. He discusses the irony of british abolitionism while “wage slavery” existed in its factories. Lastly he laments that while there is institutional moral progress with slavery being outlawed worldwide(by United Nations in 1962), individual man has not evolved spiritually, as many humans still love to oppress, dominate, kill and torture: Witness modern slavery in a “civilized” Germany in the 30’ss and 40’s.
March 7, 2020
The late professor Davis' final book on slavery. Expounding on the Haitian revolution and how it affected slaveholders and abolition movements in the US, moving through the early 1800s on Britain's anti-slavery movement and emancipation of 800,000 slaves in the West Indies, culminating in the emancipation of slaves in the US following the Civil War. In the book Davis also goes into the animalization and dehumanization of slaves, the attempts in the US at colonizing the former slaves back to Africa and the fight over immediate abolition versus gradual emancipation.
"Inhuman Bondage", written in 2006, was a better book by Davis in my opinion, but this book closes his "Problem of Slavery..." trilogy rather well.
"Inhuman Bondage", written in 2006, was a better book by Davis in my opinion, but this book closes his "Problem of Slavery..." trilogy rather well.
December 13, 2021
It's dense, and I found the focus on bios and individuals breaking up the timeline disorienting.
When the title says "the problem of Slavery" what it really means is "What did people think or say about slavery" in the time period described. Still, I learned more about the revolution in Haiti and just how bloody and violent the fight for emancipation was -- things that get glossed over in history classes. A difficult read, but a rewarding one at times.
When the title says "the problem of Slavery" what it really means is "What did people think or say about slavery" in the time period described. Still, I learned more about the revolution in Haiti and just how bloody and violent the fight for emancipation was -- things that get glossed over in history classes. A difficult read, but a rewarding one at times.
March 6, 2015
A monumental finish to historian David Brion Davis's massive telling of the Problem of Slavery: in Western Culture (book 1); in the Age of Revolution (book 2) and finally in the moral triumph of the human spirit that brought about emancipation and the abolishing (for the most part) of human bondage.
I discovered it accidentally (fortuitously!) when needing a book to read, not having gotten to the library, I happened upon this wonderful book and downloaded it.
Davis weaves the story back and forth across the Atlantic and the English Channel focusing primarily on slavery in the colonies and former colonies of France, Spain and England. Having read a slew of books on the U.S. Civil War, its causes and consequences, I was totally unprepared for how little I really knew! How without knowing what was going on on both sides of the Atlantic one actually know so little. And how important to the unfolding story was its beginning with the Haitian Revolution, about which I knew almost nothing.
Davis makes clear that abolitionists, both Black and white, in other countries strategically downplayed Haitian accomplishments because the idea of Africans rising up in bloody revolt almost literally scared slaveholders to death - and into fighting yet more tenaciously to prevent slavery's end. Yet while keeping quiet about it, fighters for freedom, again both Black and white, took great inspiration from this great Black uprising: Haiti showed uncontrovertibly how much Africans longed for freedom, how hard they were willing to fight for it, and how much they were willing to sacrifice, and if necessary, die for it. It proved in no uncertain terms that "Give me liberty or give me death!" was not a determination limited to white men.
Davis's books are at once a history of events and also of the movements, culture and ideas, including those philosophical and theological, that culminate in those events. He believes and convincingly proves that one cannot understand history without understanding ideas, including those of religious faith--the beliefs and passions that motivate human beings to create that history.
He also is convinced that history depends to a great extent upon contingencies (and he points out that some--myself included--would call these providence). Important among these contingencies is the power of "ideas whose time has come."
This book shed extraordinary light for me on not just the Age of Emancipation but on the whole sweep of human history and the horrifying role played by the inhuman bondage--the owning as property of human beings by other human beings.
Not only is the story inspiring, David Brion Davis's passionate telling of it is so inspiring that after my happy reading accident I worked my way backwards through the earlier books of the magisterial trilogy, following "Emancipation" with "The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution", published in 1999 and lastly, the first, published in 1967, "The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture." (It was interesting to see how the scholarship of slavery has developed through 40 years, with, according to Davis, much yet to be explored.)
This is tough stuff, certainly a tough story. I'm not a historian. Davis is a scholar writing for scholars. I found Emancipation the most engaging of the three books, with lovely flashes of wit and irony that made me feel I was sitting and listening to a wise and seasoned friend. I was grateful to grab the story as best I could (with help from Wikipedia) and hang on as best I could for a transformative ride I wouldn't have wanted to miss.
I discovered it accidentally (fortuitously!) when needing a book to read, not having gotten to the library, I happened upon this wonderful book and downloaded it.
Davis weaves the story back and forth across the Atlantic and the English Channel focusing primarily on slavery in the colonies and former colonies of France, Spain and England. Having read a slew of books on the U.S. Civil War, its causes and consequences, I was totally unprepared for how little I really knew! How without knowing what was going on on both sides of the Atlantic one actually know so little. And how important to the unfolding story was its beginning with the Haitian Revolution, about which I knew almost nothing.
Davis makes clear that abolitionists, both Black and white, in other countries strategically downplayed Haitian accomplishments because the idea of Africans rising up in bloody revolt almost literally scared slaveholders to death - and into fighting yet more tenaciously to prevent slavery's end. Yet while keeping quiet about it, fighters for freedom, again both Black and white, took great inspiration from this great Black uprising: Haiti showed uncontrovertibly how much Africans longed for freedom, how hard they were willing to fight for it, and how much they were willing to sacrifice, and if necessary, die for it. It proved in no uncertain terms that "Give me liberty or give me death!" was not a determination limited to white men.
Davis's books are at once a history of events and also of the movements, culture and ideas, including those philosophical and theological, that culminate in those events. He believes and convincingly proves that one cannot understand history without understanding ideas, including those of religious faith--the beliefs and passions that motivate human beings to create that history.
He also is convinced that history depends to a great extent upon contingencies (and he points out that some--myself included--would call these providence). Important among these contingencies is the power of "ideas whose time has come."
This book shed extraordinary light for me on not just the Age of Emancipation but on the whole sweep of human history and the horrifying role played by the inhuman bondage--the owning as property of human beings by other human beings.
Not only is the story inspiring, David Brion Davis's passionate telling of it is so inspiring that after my happy reading accident I worked my way backwards through the earlier books of the magisterial trilogy, following "Emancipation" with "The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution", published in 1999 and lastly, the first, published in 1967, "The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture." (It was interesting to see how the scholarship of slavery has developed through 40 years, with, according to Davis, much yet to be explored.)
This is tough stuff, certainly a tough story. I'm not a historian. Davis is a scholar writing for scholars. I found Emancipation the most engaging of the three books, with lovely flashes of wit and irony that made me feel I was sitting and listening to a wise and seasoned friend. I was grateful to grab the story as best I could (with help from Wikipedia) and hang on as best I could for a transformative ride I wouldn't have wanted to miss.
March 29, 2014
Great, great book. Belongs next to the likes of Eric Foner's "Reconstruction" on bookshelves.
Davis tackles how issues such as colonization related to gradualism, and immediatism later on, in emancipation. In terms of the US, he also looks at the slave revolt on Saint Domingue (Haiti), British emancipation (and colonization on Sierra Leone before the US started the Liberia colonization) and more, and their effects on the US.
Among the biggest takeaways? Davis encourages us, especially us of more liberal mindset, to look more kindly upon the "colonizers." He notes that a number of blacks, as well as many whites, had the same sentiment that President Lincoln expressed to Frederick Douglass in 1864, that the social difference between the races could never be bridged in America. Other blacks felt that going to Liberia gave them the best chance of "proving themselves," both as individuals and as representatives of a race/ethnicity. And, a few went there for, at least in part if not mainly, mercenary/capitalistic reasons.
From there, Davis also talks about how both white and black abolitionists, on both sides of the pond, dealt with slaveholders and slaveholders' allies, comments about factory wage slavery.
Also, Davis documents the rise of racism circa 1830 or so, just as the North (except Connecticut, not until 1848, and New Jersey, in some narrow cases, not until 1865), completed emancipation, and how this interwined with emancipation for Southern blacks and more.
Davis tackles how issues such as colonization related to gradualism, and immediatism later on, in emancipation. In terms of the US, he also looks at the slave revolt on Saint Domingue (Haiti), British emancipation (and colonization on Sierra Leone before the US started the Liberia colonization) and more, and their effects on the US.
Among the biggest takeaways? Davis encourages us, especially us of more liberal mindset, to look more kindly upon the "colonizers." He notes that a number of blacks, as well as many whites, had the same sentiment that President Lincoln expressed to Frederick Douglass in 1864, that the social difference between the races could never be bridged in America. Other blacks felt that going to Liberia gave them the best chance of "proving themselves," both as individuals and as representatives of a race/ethnicity. And, a few went there for, at least in part if not mainly, mercenary/capitalistic reasons.
From there, Davis also talks about how both white and black abolitionists, on both sides of the pond, dealt with slaveholders and slaveholders' allies, comments about factory wage slavery.
Also, Davis documents the rise of racism circa 1830 or so, just as the North (except Connecticut, not until 1848, and New Jersey, in some narrow cases, not until 1865), completed emancipation, and how this interwined with emancipation for Southern blacks and more.
November 24, 2014
Brings together various threads - the dehumanization of the slave's image in modern slavery, the impact of the Haitian Revolution, colonization and the ACS, the shift to demands for immediate emancipation, self-emancipation, British emancipation, the key role of free blacks in agitating for emancipation, the view of emancipation in Britain as it evolved over the period between British emancipation and the American Civil War.
May 31, 2015
This book pulled on me to learn and evaluate parts of history about which I had limited understanding. I am confident I would learn more by reading it again. Some of the areas of particular importance to me were on the idea of recolonizing emancipated slaves, the false narrative surrounding the volume of escaped slaves, the religious ideals of abolitionists, and the beginnings of respectability politics.
November 30, 2018
The first half of the book was a hard read, I almost gave up. He was very rambling , bouncing here and there. I stuck with it and the second half was much better. He did show that the North’s skirts were not clean when it came to discrimination.
September 29, 2024
A difficult read for me--it just didn't flow and a lot of the points were referencing things I did not understand. That being said, it is obviously a great place to go to learn more about subjects like colonizing blacks and dehumanization.
May 13, 2022
Terrific and extremely learned analysis of freedom, slavery, emancipation and colonization. Maybe a bit too easy on the colonizers but who am I to criticize. Very very readable.
July 21, 2018
This book took me a while to get through, partially because it's not meant to be an easy reader, and also because the level of detail wasn't really what I wanted. I think the core conclusions about racism, the economic viability of the slave trade, the realities of colonization movements, and the other key points are super important. In that sense, I learned a lot from this book. But did I really get a lot of out of the specific details of a abolitionist that I never heard of before and will probably never heard of again? Not really.
I would recommend this book to anyone really interested in slavery, racism, or emancipation. I honestly would have preferred something at the level of cliff notes for this one though.
I would recommend this book to anyone really interested in slavery, racism, or emancipation. I honestly would have preferred something at the level of cliff notes for this one though.
July 13, 2016
Fascinating history of the elimination of slavery in the US. This book provided me with a substantially greater understanding of the American slavery issue of the 19th century as well as invaluable context in the forms of the role of slavery in the economic power of the South, impacts of slave rebellions in the Caribbean on US perspectives, European abolition effects on the US and vice versa, and various proposed approaches to actually implement emancipation in the US. Most improbably, I read this the final book in the Davis trilogy on the "problem of slavery" without awareness of and, of course, therefore without reading the first 2 volumes yet encountered no resulting difficulties unless you consider the cost of the first two volumes just purchased for my 'to read' list.
August 23, 2014
This superb study is the last of Davis's trilogy on the problem of slavery. It examines what he considers one of the most important benchmarks of moral progress in human history: the abolishment of Anglo-American chattel slavery in the 19th century. This progress came at enormous cost in the United States in the Civil War death toll of more than 650,000 people.
His chapters on animalization/dehumanization are fascinating, and his analysis resonates today as white "ownership" of blacks is challenged on different levels than those that existed in the U.S. more than 150 years ago.
I must obtain his first two volumes now, the first published in 1966.
His chapters on animalization/dehumanization are fascinating, and his analysis resonates today as white "ownership" of blacks is challenged on different levels than those that existed in the U.S. more than 150 years ago.
I must obtain his first two volumes now, the first published in 1966.
January 26, 2015
This book is the final instalment of a trilogy that began nearly fifty years ago. It is hard to believe that an 86 year old can still produce a book of such magnitude, but that should teach us never to slight the learning and experience of our elders. The other instalments in the trilogy were very good, but this one is the best, though I might only be saying that because it deals with the period that I am most interested in (c. 1830-65).
July 16, 2014
It's starting to bog down a bit in all the details about the Haitian Revolution. But I know next to nothing about that, and it was a turning point.
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November 21, 2014306.36209 D2615 2014
October 17, 2018
An intellectual history of the white-skinned narcissistic view of dark-skinned people as animals.
March 6, 2015
Transformative, could not put down. Wrote a complete review on iPad and it's not showing up. GRRRR
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May 9, 2019Third volume of Davis' trilogy on slavery. Slavery in the US is the focus but from an international perspective. After exploring some definitions of slavery in the late 18th century Davis shows how the slave revolution in Haiti focused the minds of slave owners and abolitionists. The colonization of Liberia effectively split abolitionists into two groups. Davis profiles many remarkable African Americans including James Forten, David Walker, Leonard Bacon and naturally Frederick Douglas. The emancipation of slaves in England in 1833 was a bombshell in the US. Committees were formed to find out what effect it was likely to have. The sugar trade suffered after emancipation showing that slavery as an economic system worked and was not a dying institution. Davis shows how the Confederacy hoped to expand a southern slave empire to Nicaragua and Cuba when Lincoln's cordon blocked expansion north and west. Davis died just a few weeks ago at 91.
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews