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Hugh Thomas. The Slave Trade: The Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1440-1870. New York: Simon, 1997. 909 pp. $37.50.
If this book had been published as a Hollywood movie, it would have been called a "blockbuster." It is a sweeping and detailed survey of the Atlantic slave trade, from its beginnings with the Portuguese in the 1440s to its end about 1870, a period of more than four hundred years. It also takes into some account the trade in slaves from West Africa northwards to Arabic regions along the southern portions of the Mediterranean Sea and to a lesser extent the Arabic slave trade in East Africa. It has similarly grand dimensions as the author's previous monumental work, Conquest. Montezuma, Cortes, and the Fall of Old Mexico, though here the chronological and geographic range is much greater.
The Slave Trade is especially valuable...