357pp., 4to., colour maps, colour illus., hardback, d.w., Updated and Expanded Edition, Yale University Press, New Haven, (2010) 2026
ISBN: 9780300278552
Foreword to the second edition by Toyin Falola. Foreword to the first edition by David Brion Davis. Afterword by David W. Blight
The first edition of this monumental cartographic history of the African slave trade to the New World demonstrated, with nearly 200 original maps, where the captives came from, how long the journeys lasted, how many died on the voyages, and what the ports and destinations were, as well as presenting details about the trade itself, including the economics. The first edition won the R. R. Hawkins Award, the Anisfield-Wolf Award for non-fiction and the Prose Award for Reference from the Association of American Publishers.
This revised edition includes 25 new maps that locate the major language groups involved in the traffic and show the movement of Africans from the interior of the continent to the Americas, as well as from one part of the Americas to another. As in the first edition, revealing illustrations and contemporary literary selections, including poems, letters, and diary entries, accompany the maps.
The atlas also includes up-to-date information drawn from the database Slave Voyages (www.slavevoyages.org), with its records of more than 36,200 voyages.
"A testament to the value of collaborative effort ... a substantial and lasting contribution to the economic history of transatlantic slaving and our understanding of the subject ... An excellent reference text." Kwasi Konadu, African Studies Review, on the first edition
"This marvelous book will change how people think of the slave trade. It deserves every accolade it is likely to get." Nicolas van de Walle, Foreign Affairs, on the first edition
David Eltis is Robert W. Woodruff Professor Emeritus of History, Emory University. His books include The Rise of African Slavery in the Americas.
David Richardson (1946–2023) was Director of the Wilberforce Institute for the Study of Slavery and Emancipation and Professor of Economic History, University of Hull, England. His final book was Principles and Agents: The British Slave Trade and Its Abolition.
Philip Misevich is Associate Professor of History at St. John’s University. He is the author of Abolition and the Transformation of Atlantic Commerce in Southern Sierra Leone, 1790s to 1860s.
