ABSTRACT
Professor Yasuba, I first came across your work in the classic Robert Fogel and Stan Engerman collection, The Reinterpretation of American Economic History of 1971 (Yasuba 1961). I found your paper on the profitability of plantation slavery in the United States extremely compelling, and for many years it was required reading for students on my course at the University of Wales, Swansea, UK, on the economic history of the United States. They found your argument that the economic basis of rearing slaves was no different in essence to that of raising hogs to be shocking but logically indisputable. The selling price had to be greater than the costs of production, to cover costs and give a return on capital. So it has been a great pleasure to meet you on several recent visits to Japan. How did you come to get into the debate on slavery?
