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612-822-4611
Unbroken Chains: A 5,000-Year History of African Enslavement

Unbroken Chains: A 5,000-Year History of African Enslavement

Hardcover

African HistoryGeneral Racism & Ethnic Studies

ISBN10: 1805264028
ISBN13: 9781805264026
Publisher: Hurst & Co.
Published: Nov 15 2025
Pages: 320
Weight: 1.49
Height: 1.23 Width: 6.66 Depth: 9.30
Language: English
Slavery has ravaged African societies since at least 2,500 BCE, from Egypt to the Cape; from Mauritania to Somalia. Most writing covers just one fraction of this history: the horrors of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Yet Indian Ocean slavery was equally sizeable, and far longer-lived. Historians often neglect the continent's internal practices, too--Ethiopian kingdoms enslaving conquered peoples; the Sokoto Caliphate capturing men and women on a scale matching the US plantations.

Overlooked stories of enslavement matter. In 1794, Congress authorized construction of the US Navy's first six ships--to protect civilian vessels from North Africa's Barbary corsairs, who raided as far as Britain and the Caribbean, enslaving hundreds of thousands of Europeans. And, since abolition of the trans-Atlantic trade, international focus on 'modern' slavery has left Africans enslaved as chattel today with few champions. The UN and African Union are too embarrassed to confront leaders still permitting this practice.

Unbroken Chains is the first full account of the bondage systems that have scarred African communities over the millennia. It is an illuminating, powerful read.

Also from

Plaut, Martin

Also in

General Racism & Ethnic Studies