The Slavery Reader brings together the most recent and essential writings on slavery. The focus is on Atlantic slavery - the enforced movement of millions of Africans from their homelands into the Americas, and the complex historical story of slavery in the Americas. Spanning almost five centuries - the late fifteenth until the mid-nineteenth - the articles trace the range and impact of slavery on the modern Western world. Key themes include: the origins and development of American slavery work family, gender and community slave culture slave economy resistance race and social structure Africans in the Atlantic world. Together with the editors' clear and authoritative commentary and a substantial introduction, this volume will become central to the study of slavery.