The Cambridge World History of Slavery

Volume 1 in the new Cambridge World History of Slavery surveys the history of slavery in the ancient Mediterranean world. Although chapters are devoted to the ancient Near East and the Jews, its principal concern is with the societies of ancient Greece and Rome. These are often considered as the first examples in world history of genuine slave societies because of the widespread prevalence of chattel slavery, which is argued to have been a cultural manifestation of the ubiquitous violence in societies typified by incessant warfare. There was never any sustained opposition to slavery, and the new religion of Christianity probably reinforced rather than challenged its existence. In twenty-two chapters, leading scholars explore the centrality of slavery in ancient Mediterranean life using a wide range of textual and material evidence. Non-specialist readers in particular will find the volume an accessible account of the early history of this crucial phenomenon.

Keith Bradley is Eli J. and Helen Shaheen Professor of Classics at the University of Notre Dame. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, he held a Killam Research Fellowship in Canada from 1996 to 1998. His principal interests are in the history of Roman society and culture, on which he has published widely. He is the author of Discovering the Roman Family: Studies in Roman Social History (1991) and Slavery and Society at Rome (Cambridge, 1994).
Paul Cartledge is A. G. Leventis Professor of Greek Culture at Cambridge University and a Fellow of Clare College. He has published extensively on Greek history over several decades. including The Cambridge Illustrated History of Ancient Greece (Cambridge 1997, new edition 2002), Alexander the Great: The Hunt for a New Past (2004, revised, edition 2005), and most recently Ancient Greek Political Thought in Practice (Cambridge, 2009).