Peter Kolchin : American Slavery review

Peter Kolchin is a history professor at the University of Delaware. In 1970, Kolchin received a degree from John Hopkins University. He now specializes in nineteenth-century U.S. history, the South, slavery and emancipation, and comparative history. In his career he has written many books on slavery including Unfree Labor: American Slavery and Russian Serfdom and First Freedom: The Responses of Alabama's Blacks to Emancipation and Reconstruction (Peter Kolchin...). In 1993, his third book American Slavery was published and 10 years later a revised copy was released which featured a new preface and afterword (Thomas). This book was re-released in order to catch up to the increase scholarly interest in slavery.

"American Slavery: 1619-1877" is the full title of the book. The revised copy does not differ much from the original text as stated before. Kolchin states on page xvii of his Preface to the Revised Edition that, "The seven chapters that form the heart of the book remain unchanged".

United States

Scars of a whipped slave (April 2, 1863, Baton Rou...

United States

It is only when one reaches the afterword or the bibliographical essay when the revisions are seen. The purpose of the book directly correlates to its title, American Slavery. The book is basically a piece of literature designed to provide a better understanding for American slavery, and slavery in general including trade and life as a slave.

The book follows somewhat of a timeline, beginning with the origins of slavery and following it throughout history focusing generally on the time frame of the colonial era and the 19th century to the end of slavery in America. In American Slavery there is much focus associated with the antebellum period. The antebellum period can be generalized as the years between the formation of a Union and the Civil War (Free Blacks...).

Kolchin's book can be separated from what we...