This book is both more and less than a history of slavery in America. It transcends the limit of the average treatise in this field in that it shows how the institution influenced the economic history of America in all its ramifications. It falls far short of being a complete history of slavery for the reason of the neglect of many aspects by the author. The book is successful as a compilation or digest of the sources of the history of slavery cast in the mind of a man of southern birth and northern environment in manhood. The author furnishes adequate background for this work in tracing the slave trade, beginning with the exploitation of Guinea and proceeding to a detailed consideration of the maritime traffic. Slavery as it existed in the West Indies is portrayed in his account of the sugar industry. In the continental colonies it appears in his treatment of the tobacco industry, rice culture and the interests of the northern colonies. He shows how the struggle for the rights of man resulted in a sort of reaction against slavery in the North and the so-called prohibition of the African slave trade. In his discussion of the introduction of cotton and the domestic slave trade, there are few facts which cannot be obtained from several standard works. His treatment of types of plantations, with reference to their management, labor, social aspects and tendencies, is more informing. The contrast between town and country slaves, the discussion of free Negroes, slave crime and the force of the law, do not give us very much that is new. On the whole, however, the book is a valuable piece of research giving a more intensive treatment of economic slavery than any other single volume hitherto published.