The Long Emancipation: The Demise of Slavery in the United States

University of Maryland historian Berlin (Many Thousands Gone) has studied American slavery from its origins through its demise, and in this short, tightly constructed monograph he focuses on the latter process, which after a century and a half “remains very much alive among us and about us.” The work, based on his 2014 Nathan I. Huggins lectures in African-American history at Harvard, centers on whether emancipation came as the result of centuries of liberation struggles on the part of the enslaved, or if it was the gift of “constituted authority” on the part of Abraham Lincoln. That debate maps onto the wider issue of whether the majority of slaves were in constant, if often secret, forms of resistance to their bondage, or whether they accommodated themselves to their plight and hoped simply to ameliorate their situation. In Berlin’s view, “the demise of slavery was not so much a proclamation as a movement” that played out in various ways across the plantation societies of the Atlantic. All were characterized by black resistance, violent struggle, and a stated desire for freedom and citizenship. Writing for a general audience, Berlin lucidly illuminates the “near-century-long” process of abolition and how, in many ways, the work of emancipation continues today. [em](Sept.) [/em]