The American Crucible: Slavery, Emancipation and Human Rights
The American Crucible furnishes a vivid and authoritative history of the rise and fall of slavery in the Americas. For over three centuries enslavement promoted the rise of capitalism in the Atlantic world. The New World became the crucible for a succession of fateful experiments in colonization, silver mining, plantation agriculture, racial enslavement, colonial rebellion, slave witness and slave resistance. Slave produce raised up empires, fostered new cultures of consumption and financed the breakthrough to an industrial order.
Not until the stirrings of a revolutionary age in the 1780s was there the first public challenge to the ‘peculiar institution’. An anti-slavery alliance then set the scene for great acts of emancipation in Haiti in 1804, Britain in 1833–8, the United States in the 1860s, and Cuba and Brazil in the 1880s. In The American Crucible, Robin Blackburn argues that the anti-slavery movement forged many of the ideals we live by today.
Paperback, 520 pages
ISBN: 9781781681060
August 2013
$29.95 / £14.99 / $25.00CAN
Other Editions
Hardback, 512 pages
ISBN: 9781844675692
May 2011
$34.95 / £20.00 / $43.50CAN
Reviews
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“Robin Blackburn has provided one of the most commanding and wide-ranging examinations of Atlantic abolitionism in years.”
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“The finest one-volume history of the rise and fall of modern slavery.”
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“Blackburn describes emancipation in all its vexed, indeterminate grandeur, propelled by violent clashes, public debate, harrowing exposés, and the consolidation of new notions of freedom and equality.”
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“Poses a challenge for the political future as well as a bold reappraisal of the historical past.”
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“A marvelous book—insightful and stimulating.”
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“Magisterial history of transatlantic slavery.”
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“This is a richly scholarly book … an important contribution to our understanding of the shaping of the modern world.”
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“Blackburn writes authoritatively across centuries and continents.”
Blog
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New Left Review - issue 79 out now
New Left Review 79 is out now featuring the following articles:
Mike Davis: The Last White Election
Surveying the US political landscape, Mike Davis identifies the complex social and geographical determinants of Obama's November victory. Within an increasingly polarized ideological force field, how will the coming struggles between Democratic President and Senate and Republican House unfold?
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Django Unchained and Lincoln: A reading list on race, plus your chance to win 3 titles
Out in the UK this month, Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained and Steven Speilberg's Lincoln has energized interest in a period of American history defined by race. Rather than make our own critiques or slap downs, we present these books to fill the gaps left by Hollywood.
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"We are black..."—Verso books for Black History Month
We are black, it is true, but tell us, gentlemen, you who are so judicious, what is the law that says that the black man must belong to and be the property of the white man? ... Yes, gentleman, we are free like you, and it is only by your avarice and our ignorance that anyone is still held in slavery up to this day, and we can neither see nor find the right that you pretend to have over us ... We are your equals then, by natural right, and if nature pleases itself to diversify colours within the human race, it is not a crime to be born black nor an advantage to be white.
This excerpt is from a letter written in July 1792 by the leaders of the revolution of Haitian slaves. The letter has been republished in the collection of writings of the black leader Toussaint L'Overture, The Haitian Revolution, which includes also the correspondence between him and Napoleon Bonaparte. In the late eighteenth century, Toussaint L'Overture and his supporters established the first black republic in the world.
In the United Kingdom, October is Black History Month. The celebration was originally introduced in 1926 on the initiative of Carter G. Woodson, the editor of the Journal of Negro History. In 2007, no fewer than 6,000 events were held in the UK as part of its programme. Here are some key Verso titles past and present that are relevant to the study and celebration of African and Caribbean history.
