Product Description

The Atlantic slave trade was one of the largest and most elaborate maritime and commercial ventures. Between 1492 and about 1870, ten million or more black slaves were carried from Africa to one port or another of the Americas. In this wide-ranging book, Hugh Thomas follows the development of this massive shift of human lives across the centuries until the slave trade's abolition in the late nineteenth century.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #17814 in Books
• Published on: 2006-01-05
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 928 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Hugh Thomas's The Slave Trade takes a big-picture view of New World slavery in its international context. The Portuguese and Spanish who first came to Africa, he writes, arrived in search of gold. They found it, but they also found social systems in which the ransom, buying, and selling of human beings had long been established. These systems had existed in European antiquity, and now they were revived when, shortly after making contact with Africa, the European nations began to establish colonies on the other side of the Atlantic; the horrible traffic continued well into the 19th century. Thomas mines vast archives and previously published histories to make this sweeping and remarkably useful synthesis.

LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS
'The most impressive single volume history of the subject. Combining grand narrative sweep with vivid, telling detail, Thomas provides an elegant synthesis of contemporary accounts and modern scholarship'

Review
A 'darkly compelling history of the trade'. (MAIL ON SUNDAY )

'The most impressive single volume history of the subject. Combining grand narrative sweep with vivid, telling detail, Thomas provides an elegant synthesis of contemporary accounts and modern scholarship' (LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS )

Customer Reviews

A real eye-opener for those who want their eyes opened!!
I think Hugh Thomas has done his work well here, maintining an objectivity that few authors achieve when approaching this sometimes sensetive subject. The facts and factors involved in the African trade in slaves and its subsequent exploitaion by Europeans has been documented without bias and served to the interested reader in the plainest of language.

Although the volume is a thick one, it's a must for those who have a vested or general interest in this poignant period of history. Once I picked it up I found it difficult to put down again. I hope whoever buys and reads it finds this publication equally informative.

Informing and entertaining read
This is probably the best book I have read on the slave trade. Hugh Thomas explores the origins and development of this deplorable enterprise with candour and insight. It is a well researched work, which is not couched in "high" academic speak, making it quite easy to read.

As the author chronicles the trade, sometimes through the words and actions of the principal players, one becomes aware of the moral ambiguities that characterised the trade from the start. By avoiding sweeping generalisations, he dispassionately addresses the mindsets of the slaving and enslaved peoples. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants an overview of the slave trade.

Great read!!!!
This is a long book: a brick of 900 pages describing and discussing the transatlantic slave trade from the Portuguese start in the mid-15th century to the illegal period in the mid 19th century.
One has to be very interested in history to dwell into Hugh Thomas' immensely detailed historical description of the period. But if one is, this book is a true gold-mine: details about specific shipments and harbours; the lifes of slaves, traders and others who suffered (or benefitted) from the trade; the economic consequences and financial matters; the political and legal implications and debates on abolition. All come to life with an amazing sense of detail! I particularly enjoyed reading the background that got the horrible trade starting, as well as the long debate on its abolition, for which there were already people arguing in the 15th century.
Also, the hypocrisies of the entire trade come to life well in the descriptions, like the arguments of the African slaves being better off as slaves in the Americas than free men in Africa.
Such hypocritical statements are surely what one can learn from today, where there seems to be no less hypocrisy.
Great book, but can be a heavy read if you are only marginally interested in the transatlantic slave trade.