A solid review of David Brion Davis’ Inhuman Bondage by Ira Berlin in today’s New York Times. The review includes this:
The genius of “Inhuman Bondage” is in Davis’s ability to identify the big questions: Why slavery? Why did slavery become identified with Africans and their descendants? Why was slavery so easily accepted before 1776 and so readily challenged thereafter? Why did racism outlast slavery? On each of these matters, and dozens more, Davis expertly summarizes the debates, bringing clarity to the contending arguments. “Inhuman Bondage” is a tour de force of synthetic scholarship.
But Davis is not merely a referee among historical gladiators. He gets in with the lions, forcing a rethinking of many of the most fundamental issues. He examines the twists and turns of slavery’s development and the contingencies that set human history off in unexpected directions: the patent evil that redounds to the good and the earnest benevolence that creates untold pain.