Robin Blackburn: A Lifetime of Scholarship on Slavery and its Abolition

Robin Blackburn is the critically acclaimed author of several works on slavery and its abolition.

His latest work, The Reckoning: From the Second Slavery to Abolition, 1776-1888, traces the “Second Slavery” that surged in the US South, Cuba and Brazil after the Age of Revolution (1776–1848) destroyed the main slave regimes of the Caribbean. By 1860, more than 6 million captives of African descent toiled to produce the cotton, sugar and coffee craved by global consumers. Robin Blackburn highlights the role of abolitionism in driving Confederate slaveholders into the apparent escape-hatch of secession, and how racial oppression was later reconfigured by “Black Codes” and Jim Crow.

In this interview (with Kevin Ochieng Okoth) he discusses the history of slavery and capitalism in the Americas.

Get 30% off The Reckoning when you buy 2 or more books by Robin Blackburn. This offer will expire on February 29th, and the discount will be automatically applied once your books are in your cart. 

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The Reckoning

by Robin Blackburn

The Age of Revolution (1776–1848) destroyed the main slave regimes of the Caribbean but a ‘Second Slavery’ surged in the US South, Cuba and Brazil, powered by demand for plantation produce and a sy...

The American Crucible

by Robin Blackburn

For over three centuries, slavery in the Americas fuelled the growth of capitalism. But the stirrings of a revolutionary age in the late eighteenth century challenged this “peculiar institution” an...

An Unfinished Revolution

by Robin Blackburn

Contributions by Raya Dunaevskaya, Friedrich Engels, Abraham Lincoln and Karl Marx

Karl Marx and Abraham Lincoln exchanged letters at the end of the Civil War. Although they were divided by far more than the Atlantic Ocean, they agreed on the cause of “free labor” and the urgent ...

The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery

by Robin Blackburn

In 1770 a handful of European nations ruled the Americas, drawing from them a stream of products, both everyday and exotic. Some two and a half million black slaves, imprisoned in plantation coloni...

The Making of New World Slavery

by Robin Blackburn

The Making of New World Slavery argues that independent commerce, geared to burgeoning consumer markets, was the driving force behind the rise of plantation slavery. The baroque state sought—succes...

Age Shock

by Robin Blackburn

Most countries face the future with an ageing population, yet most governments are cutting back on pensions and the care services needed by the elderly. Robin Blackburn exposes the perverse reasoni...

Banking on Death

by Robin Blackburn

Banking on Death offers a panoramic view of the history and future of pension provision. A work of unique scope, it traces the origins and development of the pension idea, from the days of the Fren...

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