Davis begins with the dramatic Amistad case, which vividly highlights the international character of the Atlantic slave trade and the roles of the American judiciary, the presidency, the media, and of both black and white abolitionists. The heart of the book looks at slavery in the American South, describing black slaveholding planters, the rise of the Cotton Kingdom, the daily life of ordinary slaves, the highly destructive internal, long-distance slave trade, the sexual exploitation of slaves, the emergence of an African-American culture, and much more. But though centered on the United States, the book offers a global perspective spanning four continents. It is the only study of American slavery that reaches back to ancient foundations (discussing the classical and biblical justifications for chattel bondage) and also traces the long evolution of anti-black racism (as in the writings of David Hume and Immanuel Kant, among many others). Equally important, it combines the subjects of slavery and abolitionism as very few books do, and it illuminates the meaning of nineteenth-century slave conspiracies and revolts, with a detailed comparison with 3 major revolts in the British Caribbean. It connects the actual life of slaves with the crucial place of slavery in American politics and stresses that slavery was integral to America's success as a nation.--from publisher description.

The Amistad test of law and justice -- The ancient foundations of modern slavery -- The origins of antiblack racism in the new world -- How Africans became integral to new world history -- The Atlantic slave system : Brazil and the Caribbean -- Slavery in colonial North America -- The problem of slavery in the American Revolution -- The impact of the French and Haitian revolutions -- Slavery in the nineteenth-century South I : from contradiction to defense -- Slavery in the nineteenth-century south II : from slaveholder treatment and the nature of labor to slave culture, sex and religion, and free Blacks -- Some nineteenth-century slave conspiracies and revolts -- Explanations of British abolitionism -- Abolitionism in America -- The politics of slavery in the United States -- The Civil War and slave emancipation.