Dictionary of Afro-American Slavery

Secondary school, public, and academic libraries will welcome this excellent one-volume encyclopedia. . . . Scholars seeking facts outside their specialty as well as generalists investigating aspects of American slavery can benefit from the Dictionary. A good subject index and cross-references facilitate access. Though some of the information can be found elsewhere, the focus here is unique, the articles combine substance with fluent style, and the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

Library Journal (starred review)



This dictionary is the first comprehensive reference on Afro-American slavery to appear since the 1960s. It fills a great gap in the historiography of slavery that has been created by the proliferation of modern slavery studies in the past twenty-five years, and provides the opportunity for synthesizing the best literature on the many and diverse topics relating to the slavery experience in North America. Miller and Smith include essays on the social, institutional, intellectual, and political aspects of slavery, written by leading experts in the field. The book covers a wide selection of materials in almost 300 articles that examine regional and geographical differences and changes in slavery from the first English settlement in North America to Reconstruction. The contributors offer both narrative summaries and interpretive arguments, and the editors have provided an explanatory introduction and a comprehensive subject index. Special care has been taken to include suggestions for further reading for each entry, and the topics have been selected for their importance to both specialists and nonspecialists.