Human Bondage and Abolition : New Histories of Past and Present Slaveries

Contemporary enslavement remains invisible because it operates as a criminal enterprise rather than a legal institution. This volume addresses modern-day slavery by developing historical perspectives that render it vividly recognizable. Uses historical inquiry to expose its roots, describe its varieties, and offer guidance for those who oppose it.

Slavery''s expansion across the globe often escapes notice because it operates as an underground criminal enterprise, rather than as a legal institution. In this volume, Elizabeth Swanson and James Brewer Stewart bring together scholars from across disciplines to address and expose the roots of modern-day slavery from a historical perspective as a means of supporting activist efforts to fight it in the present. They trace modern slavery to its many sources, examining how it is sustained and how today''s abolitionists might benefit by understanding their predecessors'' successes and failures. Using scholarship also intended as activism, the volume''s authors analyze how the history of African American enslavement might illuminate or obscure the understanding of slavery today and show how the legacies of earlier forms of slavery have shaped human bondage and social relations in the twenty-first century.