ABSTRACT
Slavery in the Americas had its roots both in Africa and in Europe. In his 1990 book Slavery and African Life, Patrick Manning explores the African origins of American slavery as well as the impact which the transatlantic demand for slaves had upon Africa. Manning, although primarily an economic and demographic historian, wrestles with the philosophical and historical meaning of slavery and the slave trade in the first pages of this selection. His book treats both the Occidental slave trade (meaning chiefly the transatlantic one, but also the smaller current of slave sales from Africa to Europe) and the Oriental slave trade (from sub-Saharan Africa to the Middle East). Here we have excised most of his remarks on the Oriental slave trade, which had little bearing on the Atlantic world.
