The Slave Trade: The Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade: 1440 - 1870 by Thomas, Hugh

After many years of research, award-winning historian Hugh Thomas portrays, in a balanced account, the complete history of the slave trade.Beginning with the first Portuguese slaving expeditions, Hugh Thomas describes and analyzes the rise of one of the largest and most elaborate maritime and commercial ventures in all of history. Between 1492 and 1870, approximately eleven million black slaves were carried from Africa to the Americas to work on plantations, in mines, or as servants in houses. The Slave Trade is alive with villains and heroes and illuminated by eyewitness accounts. Hugh Thomas's achievement is not only to present a compelling history of the time, but to answer controversial questions as who the traders were, the extent of the profits, and why so many African rulers and peoples willingly collaborated.

Author: Hugh Thomas
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 02/03/1999
Pages: 912
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 3.00lbs
Size: 9.10h x 6.10w x 2.00d
ISBN: 9780684835655

Review Citation(s):
New York Times 02/14/1999 pg. 32

About the Author
Hugh Thomas is the author of The Spanish Civil War, Conquest, and many other books. A former Chairman of the Centre for Policy Studies (U.K.), he was made Lord Thomas of Swinnerton in 1981. He is currently a University Professor at Boston University. He lives in London