Most societies in the past have had slaves, and almost all peoples have at some time in their pasts been both slaves and owners of slaves. Recent decades have seen a significant increase in our understanding of the historical role played by slavery and wide interest across a range of academic disciplines in the evolution of the institution. Exciting and innovative research methodologies have been developed, and numerous fruitful debates generated. Further, the study of slavery has come to provide strong connections between academic research and the wider public interest at a time when such links have in general been weak. The Cambridge World History of Slavery responds to these trends by providing for the first time, in four volumes, a comprehensive global history of this widespread phenomenon from the ancient world to the present day.
Volume I surveys the history of slavery in the ancient Mediterranean world. Although chapters are devoted to the ancient Near East and the Jews, its principal concern is with the societies of ancient Greece and Rome. These are often considered as the first examples in world history of genuine slave societies because of the widespread prevalence of chattel slavery, which is argued to have been a cultural manifestation of the ubiquitous violence in societies typified by incessant warfare. There was never any sustained opposition to slavery, and the new religion of Christianity probably reinforced rather than challenged its existence. In twenty-two chapters, leading scholars from Europe and North America explore the centrality of slavery in ancient Mediterranean life from diverse perspectives and using a wide range of textual and material evidence. Non-specialist readers in particular will find the volume an accessible account of the early history of this crucial phenomenon.
Keith bradley is Eli J. and Helen Shaheen Professor of Classics at the University of Notre Dame. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, he held a Killam Research Fellowship in Canada from 1996 to 1998. His principal interests are in the history of Roman society and culture, on which he has published widely. He is the author of Discovering the Roman Family: Studies in Roman Social History (1991) and Slavery and Society at Rome (Cambridge 1994).
Paul cartledge is A. G. Leventis Professor of Greek Culture at Cambridge University and a Fellow of Clare College. He has published extensively on Greek history over several decades, including The Cambridge Illustrated History of Ancient Greece (Cambridge 1997, new edition 2002), Alexander the Great: The Hunt for a New Past (2004, revised edition 2005) and most recently Ancient Greek Political Thought in Practice (Cambridge 2009).
Series editors
Keith Bradley, University of Notre Dame Paul Cartledge, University of Cambridge David Eltis, Emory University Stanley L. Engerman, University of Rochester
Volume I: The Ancient Mediterranean World Edited by Keith Bradley and Paul Cartledge
Volume II: ad 500-AD 1420 Edited by David Eltis and Stanley L. Engerman
Volume III: ad 1420-AD 1804 Edited by David Eltis and Stanley L. Engerman
Volume IV: ad 1804-AD 2000 Edited by David Eltis and Stanley L. Engerman
World History
