Writing the History of Global Slavery

This Element stresses on two contemporary themes; placing slavery in imperial context and making the voices of the enslaved central.

Trevor Burnard (Author)

9781009467957, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 7 December 2023

74 pages
23.5 x 16 x 1 cm, 0.254 kg

'… a succinct call to action aimed at inspiring scholars to reconsider slavery from a more global perspective … Burnard manages to adeptly demonstrate command of the historiography of slavery in just 74 pages, making this piece an invaluable resource for both students and scholars. Additionally, his balanced writing style persuasively indicates possibilities for achieving the aforementioned intentions without becoming a definitive directive. Therefore, Burnard affords the historians reading this work the opportunity to decide how to develop a more inclusive scholarship of enslavement.' Hannah J. Francis, American Historical Review

This Element shows that existing models of global slavery derived from sociology and modelled closely on antebellum American slavery being normative should be replaced a global slavery that is less American and more global. It argues that we can understand the global history of slavery if we connect it more closely to another important world institution – empires in ways that historicise the study of history as an institution with a history that changes over time and space. Moreover, we can learn from scholars of modern slavery and use more than we do the enormous proliferation of usable sources about the lives, experiences and thoughts of the enslaved, from ancient to modern times, to make these voices of the enslaved crucial drivers of how we conceptualise and describe the varied kinds of global slavery in world history. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

1. Models of slavery
2. New ways of writing the history of slavery
3. Lived experience
Bibliography.

Subject Areas: History: theory & methods [HBA]