ABSTRACT
David Brion Davis’s book The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, 1770–1823 sparked great academic interest in slavery and antislavery. Even historians who disagreed with Davis’s argument about the development of the antislavery movement broadly accepted that there was a link between the emergence of antislavery ideas and the rise of capitalism. In his long and distinguished career as an academic, Davis taught a large number of students, many of whom have gone on to become academic historians. More widely, virtually all historians working on the history of slavery and antislavery, at least in the Anglo-American world, can be seen to be building on Davis’s work. Other academics influenced by Davis’s work are grouped around the Gilder Lehrman Center for Slavery, Abolition, and Resistance at Yale University. Founded by Davis in 1998, it has become one of preeminent centers for slavery and antislavery studies in the world.
