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Manuscripts (preferably in English) should be 90,000 to 180,000 words in length and may include illustrations. The editors would be interested to receive proposals for specialist monographs and syntheses but may also consider multi-authored contributions such as conference proceedings and edited volumes, as well as thematic works and source translations.
Monographs by specialists in the field are especially sought, but multi-authored edited volumes containing academic articles by slavery scholars will also be considered. Manuscripts should be written in English and be at least 80,000 words in length (including footnotes and bibliography). Manuscripts may also include illustrations, tables, maps, and other visual material.
Authors are cordially invited to submit proposals and/or full manuscripts by email to the publisher Jason Prevost. Please direct all other correspondence to Associate Editor Debbie de Wit.
*A paperback edition of select titles in the series, for individual purchase only, will be released approximately 12 months after publication of the hardcover edition.
Abstract
In response to critiques of the ‘slavery versus freedom’ binary and its limitations, researchers at the international Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies (BCDSS—
Abstract
In the years 1823, 1829–1830, and 1837, West and West Central Africa had to contend with three devastating yellow fever epidemics that affected both slave dealers who had settled along the coast and anti-slave trade officials tasked with bringing the slave trade to an end. In this paper I argue that these epidemics had a profound impact on the actions of both sets of actors, and eventually on the expansion and demise of the slave trade in the region. By focusing on the actions of a myriad of Atlantic actors, I explore the ways in which cyclical epidemics of yellow fever were dealt with, emphasizing how prophylactic measures, treatments, and more generally, medical knowledge, were challenged, affected, and changed by the arrival of each of them.
Abstract
This article revisits the scholarly debate on the profitability of historical slavery. The article examines the case of the antebellum US South, using slave hire rates as a proxy for the net rent on investments in slavery. It employs empirical data and a more advanced methodological approach to the issue than in previous research. The results suggest that the profitability of slavery was much higher than what most previous research has shown, around 14–15 per cent per year on average after adjusting for mortality risk, but that the return also fluctuated over time. It was on average more profitable for Southern capital owners to invest in slaves than investing in many alternatives such as financial instruments or manufacturing activities in the US South, as long as slavery remained a legal institution.