This detailed analysis of slavery in the antebellum South was written in 1975 in response to the prior year's publication of Robert Fogel and Stanley Engerman's controversial Time on the Cross, which argued that slavery was an efficient and dynamic engine for the southern economy and that its success was due largely to the willing cooperation of the slaves themselves. Noted labor historian Herbert G. Gutman was unconvinced, even outraged, by Fogel and Engerman's arguments. In this book he offers a systematic dissection of Time on the Cross, drawing on a wealth of data to contest that book's most fundamental assertions. A benchmark work of historical inquiry, Gutman's critique sheds light on a range of crucial aspects of slavery and its economic effectiveness. Gutman emphasizes the slaves' responses to their treatment at the hands of slaveowners. He shows that slaves labored, not because they shared values and goals with their masters, but because of the omnipresent threat of 'negative incentives,' primarily physical violence. In his introduction to this new edition, Bruce Levine provides a historical analysis of the debate over Time on the Cross. Levine reminds us of the continuing influence of the latter book, demonstrated by Robert W. Fogel's 1993 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, and hence the importance and timeliness of Gutman's critique.

The most ubiquitous feature of Harlem life between the world wars was the game of “numbers.” Thousands of wagers were placed daily. Playing the Numbers tells the story of this illegal form of gambling and the central role it played in the lives of African Americans who flooded into Harlem in the wake of World War I.

An exhaustively researched history of black families in America from the days of slavery until just after the Civil War.

Slavery transformed Africa, Europe and the Americas and hugely-enhanced the well-being of the West but the subject of slavery can be hard to understand because of its huge geographic and chronological span. This book uses a unique atlas format to present the story of slavery, explaining its historical importance and making this complex story and its geographical setting easy to understand.

Haskell explores topics ranging from the productivity of slave labor to the cultural concomitants of capitalism, from John Stuart Mill's youthful "mental crisis" to the cognitive preconditions that set the stage for antislavery and other humanitarian reforms after 1750. He traces the surprisingly short history of the word responsibility, which turns out to be no older than the United States. And he asks whether the epistemological radicalism of recent years carries the power to justify human rights - rights of academic freedom, for example, or the right not to be tortured.