Slavery, Emancipation, and Freedom: Comparative Perspectives

Walter Lynwood Fleming Lectures in Southern History

by Stanley L. Engerman

It is beyond dispute that slavery has always been abhorrent and, wherever it still exists, should be abolished. Where most scholarly writing on slavery in the past has concentrated on examining slaves as victims, recent writings have taken a more nuanced view of slavery in focusing on the slaves themselves and their cultural and psychological accomplishments in captivity. Also, studies of the system's profitability have shown that, from an economic perspective, slavery worked for the slaveholders and their society.In Slavery, Emancipation, and Freedom, the distinguished scholar Stanley Engerman succinctly synthesizes current scholarship and addresses questions that are critical to understanding the nature of Why did slavery arise, and how, why, where, and when did it legally end? What impact did slavery have on the enslaved? Was the impact lingering or was it reversed by the provision of freedom?Engerman begins his study by discussing slavery from a global perspective. He reminds us of the ubiquity of slavery throughout the world, challenging the stereotype that it was only the American South's "peculiar institution." Using the same broad comparative and temporal approach to discuss emancipation, he shows how emancipation in the southern states, several decades after it began in other parts of the world, both differed from and mirrored abolition around the globe. Slavery, Emancipation, and Freedom is an important confrontation with America's and the world's past and present. Both the breadth and depth of this brief, incisive treatise demonstrate why Engerman is considered one of America's most insightful and respected scholars.

Genres: History

128 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 2007

About the author

Stanley L. Engerman is Professor Emeritus at the University of Rochester, New York and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, Massachusetts. Among his books are Time on the Cross: The Economics of American Negro Slavery (with Robert William Fogel, 1974), Slavery, Emancipation, and Freedom: Comparative Perspectives (2007), and Economic Development in the Americas since 1500: Endowments and Institutions (with Kenneth L. Sokoloff, Cambridge, 2011).