The level of scholarly interest and output on the subject of slavery has grown remarkably since the 1960s and shows little sign of abating. Its growth is such that the subjects of slavery and abolition command an academic journal in that name. That journal itself publishes an annual bibliography of writings on slavery from the ancient world to modern times. Transatlantic slavery invariably constitutes a central part of that bibliography. The book under review here complements these efforts by offering in one volume a handbook that seeks not only to chart trends in the historiography of slavery in the Americas but also to anticipate future research trajectories for the same. Unsurprisingly, given the width, depth and complexity of the field of research it covers, it is a very large book, encompassing some 33 chapters, plus the editors’ introduction. The writers of the chapters include a mix of established historians and emerging scholars. The chapters are divided into two main categories. The first deals with places, or more specifically the evolution of slavery under the different political jurisdictions that emerged in the Americas after Columbus. There are four chapters on Spanish America; one on Portuguese America or Brazil; three on the British, Dutch and French Caribbean, respectively; and two on the colonial and national history of the United States. The second and longer section, encompassing some 22 chapters, focuses on themes, methods, and sources. The subjects chosen cover the whole gamut of issues relating to recent scholarship on slavery in the Americas. They embrace Indian slavery; the Atlantic slave trade; slave demography; the economics of slavery; class, gender, and race; slave resistance, slave culture, and slave voices; the legal framework of slavery; religion and slavery; and pro- and anti-slavery thought, abolitionism and emancipation. A final chapter or epilogue, authored by Stanley Engerman, reflects on post-slavery adjustments in the Americas. Overall, the handbook provides in one volume as broad a treatment of the national context as well as thematic and other issues relating to slavery in the Americas as one could wish to find.

The editors make it clear in their introduction that, in compiling the handbook, their goal was not ‘utter comprehensiveness’ in treating American slavery. Instead, they aimed to offer guides to ‘key historical and historiographical issues’ while at the same time ‘playing Sherpa in the field by guiding readers to fruitful areas of future enquiry’.(p. 14) Equally, they wished to avoid being over-prescriptive in defining the specific approach or content of individual chapters, allowing authors some latitude in choosing precisely how to interpret their assigned task. On the whole their trust in their co-authors has been vindicated, indeed well rewarded. Within the framework chosen for the volume, the contributors offer thorough and balanced statements of the current state of the art on their individually assigned subjects. These will undoubtedly be valuable for those seeking to teach aspects of slavery in the Americas in English-speaking universities and colleges as well as those embarking on a research career in the same field. The latter, too, will gain from the efforts of most contributors to follow the editors’ brief in charting potentially productive directions of travel for new work, even though, in the past, some of the paths of research have been difficult to predict. One important issue to emerge from the handbook, emphasised by Peter Coclanis in his chapter, is the decline of interest in the last twenty years in the economics of slavery relative to other aspects of the subject. One suspects that this reflects more than sensitivity on the part of economic historians to, in Coclanis’s words, ‘post-modern sensibilities’ (p. 506), though this suggestion is not without relevance.

The multi-author nature of the Handbook of Slavery is surely one of its strengths, but in combination with its structural division between regional and thematic approaches to slavery, it does give rise to some weaknesses. For example, while regionally based analyses of the historiography of slavery may be valuable in their own right, their value is undoubtedly enhanced by comparisons with the overall trends in slavery in the Americas of which they are a part. Chapters in section two of the handbook by Stephen Behrendt on the slave trade and by Richard Steckel on slave demography provide some information relevant to the overall trends in slavery in the Americas but otherwise one will largely search in vain in the handbook for evidence on the overall contours of the rise and fall of American slavery as context for the regional studies of slavery presented in section one. This omission also qualifies the value of some of the thematic chapters of the second section of the handbook. Another problem arising from the mix of regional and thematic approaches is duplication of material, with elements of some of the regional chapters anticipating issues that are the focus of the more thematic chapters. This applies, for example, to slave resistance or to other aspects of slave life, which, in her chapter on finding slave voices, Kathleen Hilliard reminds us W. E. B. DuBois insisted should be the main focus of slavery studies (p. 687). Some overlap in chapter content in such an ambitious volume on the historiography of slavery in the Americas is perhaps inevitable, but readers should be aware of its existence, and should accordingly use the book’s index carefully when exploring its contents.

Overall, this handbook provides a very valuable introduction to trends in the recent historiography on slavery in the Americas. The readers of the volume (as well as its editors) have been well served by the craftsmanship and erudition of those who have contributed to it.