I used this book to look at and study the history of slavery. The author has a theory and spends much of the book in pursuit of that theory. I ignored the theory and just focused on the history of chattel slavery that develops. So I skimmed a lot.
This is wordy and I think the author uses not complicated language but is more wordy than necesary. ( )

Questions such as “Why did slavery flourish and thrive in the New World about the same time it virtually disappeared in the Old World,â€? and “Why did slavery acquire racial trappings,â€? constitute two of Robin Blackburn’s main themes in The Making of New World Slavery. Blackburn methodically answers these questions in his richly detailed study that examines slavery as it existed in the Old World and traces its emergence in the Western Hemisphere. Most importantly, he analyzes the transformation of slavery from a relatively mild, though far from ideal, variety of exploitation of one group of people by another into the grindingly oppressive form in which it appeared in the Americas, where it was characterized by little hope of survival or manumission, a future which offered either death or continued slavery, and, above all, vicious racial divisions.
Blackburn points out that Old World slavery usually depended upon the capture of slaves from other tribes or groups. Defeated enemies became or supplied slaves; similarly, one’s own group was just as exposed to the possibility of enslavement should the fortunes of battle prove adverse. One did not enslave one’s own people; conversely, slavery did not rest entirely on the issue of race. Any other culture, tribe, clan, etc., provided sufficient difference to permit one group to enslave the other. While modern readers may see it as Greeks enslaving Greeks, to the ancients, the discrepancy between an Athenian and a Spartan could hardly be exaggerated. Moreover, Blackburn demonstrates that slavery did not imply a lack of hope for future freedom. Slaves often bought or earned freedom through years of faithful service. In addition, their children did not necessarily automatically become slaves. Finally, Blackburn observes that with the appearance of Christianity, the Church discouraged Christians from enslaving other Christians, thus reducing the spread and continuation of the practice for most of Europe.
However, as Europeans extended their reach into the Middle East, Africa and across the Atlantic, a combination of conditions coalesced which set the stage for the resurgence of slavery. They found non-Christian cultures that significantly differed from Europeans. Furthermore, Islamic and African peoples frequently engaged in slavery themselves. The timing of these encounters happened to promote slavery and to encourage Europeans to see it as a reasonable choice. The Age of Discovery and Exploration largely coincided with the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation. Highly charged religious attitudes of the time created conditions whereby “othersâ€? were demonized. At a time when one group of Christians could torture and burn other Christians alive, seeing Blacks or Amerindians as “othersâ€? hardly seems a stretch. Blackburn suggests that the extreme “othernessâ€? of these people at a time when Europeans insisted on religious and social consistency set the stage for their enslavement.
Concomitantly, the development of plantations in the Western Hemisphere caused an upsurge in the need for manpower. While Europeans were perfectly willing to force indigenous Americans to work the mines and plantations, the Amerindians themselves proved both mentally intractable and physically unreliable, thereby useless as manpower. Europeans found Africans physically fit for the grueling work, while African tribal leaders conspired to supply Europeans with a seemingly limitless stream of warm bodies to work the plantations.
Blackburn shows how Europeans handily jettisoned their moral compunction in light of the profits that drove them to commodify their fellow humans. The regularization of labor processes, the distancing of the worker from the items he or she consumes and the commodification of humans all manifest in the plantation system and all became elements of the incipient Industrial Revolution. He illustrates that other methods of operating the plantations could have been employed with less human cost. Blackburn argues that the long-term profits without slavery would have been greater.
Blackburn explores the Spanish, Portuguese, French, Dutch and English experience in the development of slavery. He shows Europeans conflicted over the desire to control and limit slavery and their overriding need for manpower. He demonstrates that the plantation system formed helped fuel the Industrial Revolution both as a model for regularization and mechanization of work and as a creator and supplier of large markets of consumers and commodities.
Blackburn’s Marxist slant is evident throughout the book, yet it does not mar or detract. He tries to balance his arguments and present a broad view. While he eventually comes down heavily against European capitalism that engaged in more than three centuries of slavery, his indignation and disgust seems justifiable. ( )