American Slavery: 1619-1877 by
Peter Kolchin
Outstanding Survey Of American Slavery
The single best short survey in America, now updated.
Includes a New Preface and Afterward
In terms of accessibility and comprehensive coverage, Kolchins American
Slavery is a singularly important achievement. Now updated to address a
decade of new scholarship, the book includes a new preface, afterword,
and revised and expanded bibliographic essay. It remains the best book to
introduce a subject of profound and lasting importance, one that lies at the
center of American history.
Personal Review: American Slavery: 1619-1877 by Peter Kolchin
Kolchin offers his book as a concise, readable synthesis of the movements
in the historiography of slavery in the United States. Influenced by the
movement toward social and cultural history, he devotes considerable
attention to slave life in the antebellum south and the effects of the
particular situation of slavery in the United States in shaping slave culture.
Kolchin also situates slavery in the U.S. in the context of the world wide
institution with comparisons to the Caribbean, Brazil, and to the Russian
serfs which both highlights the unique situation of American Sla ves and
emphasizes that the institution of slavery did not exist in a vacuum. The
book progresses chronologically from the 1619 arrival of slaves in
Jamestown to a brief discussion of the end of slavery and the problems of
reconstruction, with thematic treatments of slave life, white control and
paternalism in antebellum slavery as well as white society, economy, and
ideology in the American south.
In producing such a smooth
synthesis, Kolchin admittedly sacrifices a certain amount of detail and
nuance for the sake of flow and clarity. Disconcerting, at times is his lack
of documentation, another victim of simplicity in Kolchin's approach. While
accomplishing his goal of remaining clear and readable, the reader
sometimes wishes for some assistance in discerning the origin or fuller
development of a particular position or point. To his credit, Kolchin works
references to the historiography into his text well, and he provides an
exceedingly thorough bibliographical essay at the end, which is probably
the strongest segment of the work. Still, the lack of documentation
sometimes proves frustrating and thus counters the goal of smooth flow in
the text.
In the final analysis, however, Kolchin produces an excellent,
readable volume that accomplishes his goal of a balanced narrative that
shows how slavery evolved over time in the United States. So too has it
accomplished its purpose in enlightening beginners and enkindling much
scholarly discussion.
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