Reviews
"The American story cannot be told without a knowledge of its complete history. In The American Slave Coast , the Sublettes have painstakingly provided readers with both a compelling narrative and a well-documented and factual rendering. In addition, to its many other applications, The American Slave Coast will be extremely useful as an exemplar in the contemplated National Slavery Museum in Virginia." --L. Douglas Wilder, Former Governor of Virginia and author of Son of Virginia: A Life in America's Political Arena, "The American story cannot be told without a knowledge of its complete history. In The American Slave Coast , the Sublettes have painstakingly provided readers with both a compelling narrative and a well-documented and factual rendering. In addition, to its many other applications, The American Slave Coast will be extremely useful as an exemplar in the contemplated National Slavery Museum in Virginia." --L. Douglas Wilder, Former Governor of Virginia and author of Son of Virginia: A Life in America's Political Arena, " Despite the length, the Sublettes have constructed a heart rending, compelling, brilliant, and highly readable book, one that is best read out loud. Indeed, if we fail to understand how black bodies mattered in the past, we will surely misunderstand the movement and meaning in the present." --African American Intellectual History Society, "Planters said that slavery was a peculiar domestic institution, a way of life. Abolitionists answered that it was the ugliest of businesses. For too long historians tried to split the difference but really took a side by calling it 'the South,' a society or a culture. Drawing on the most recent scholarship, Ned and Constance Sublette get it right: it was an industry, a particular market-tested brand with varieties adapted to its changing times and places. And like all industries it had a politics, too, that affected producers, consumers, and the workers who, in this peculiar case, were not only labor but also capital and, in the bodies of their children, product. The three-hundred-year story has rarely, if ever, been told so fully or so well." --David Waldstreicher, The Graduate Center, City University of New York, author of Slavery's Constitution: From Revolution to Ratification, "Ned and Constance Sublette have provided the world with one of the best history books ever written about the United States. Nominally about the slave breeding industry in the US South, The American Slave Coast is actually a sweeping, in-depth survey of the nation known as the United States." --Counterpunch, "Sublette is a musical archeologist at heart. . . . Part memoir, part history lesson, it's a scrapbook of the bustling port city at its most joyful, boisterous and deadly." -- Los Angeles Times on The Year Before the Flood, "This articulate and intensely researched history provides not only an impressive look at its subject but also should serve as a model for any future works on great American cities. Cultural studies and history do not get much better than this, a must read for anyone who wonders why this city must be saved." -- Booklist on The World that Made New Orleans, "[T]his is a useful addition to the historiography of slavery." and "Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above." -- CHOICE, "A powerful, heartfelt, and sometimes angry take on a great American city." -- Kirkus Reviews on The Year Before the Flood, "It is not a quick read. But it is an excellent and important one, and should be first on the list of anyone wanting to better understand slavery and race issues in America." --San Diego Book Review, "The American story cannot be told without a knowledge of its complete history. In The American Slave Coast , the Sublettes have painstakingly provided readers with both a compelling narrative and a well-documented and factual rendering. In addition, to its many other applications, The American Slave Coast will be extremely useful as an exemplar in the contemplated National Slavery Museum in Virginia." -- L. Douglas Wilder, Former Governor of Virginia and author of Son of Virginia: A Life in America's Political Arena, "Planters said that slavery was a peculiar domestic institution, a way of life. Abolitionists answered that it was the ugliest of businesses. For too long historians tried to split the difference but really took a side by calling it 'the South,' a society or a culture. Drawing on the most recent scholarship, Ned and Constance Sublette get it right: it was an industry, a particular market-tested brand with varieties adapted to its changing times and places. And like all industries it had a politics, too, that affected producers, consumers, and the workers who, in this peculiar case, were not only labor but also capital and, in the bodies of their children, product. The three-hundred-year story has rarely, if ever, been told so fully or so well." --David Waldstreicher, The Graduate Center, City University of New York, author of Slavery's Constitution: From Revolution to Ratification, "the Sublettes offer an economic history and theory of slavery that is blunt in its assessment, unassailable in its argument and accessible to a general reader." --The Guardian, "The Sublettes offer an economic history and theory of slavery that is blunt in its assessment, unassailable in its argument and accessible to a general reader." --The Guardian, "Planters said that slavery was a peculiar domestic institution, a way of life. Abolitionists answered that it was the ugliest of businesses. For too long historians tried to split the difference but really took a side by calling it 'the South,' a society or a culture. Drawing on the most recent scholarship, Ned and Constance Sublette get it right: it was an industry, a particular market-tested brand with varieties adapted to its changing times and places. And like all industries it had a politics, too, that affected producers, consumers, and the workers who, in this peculiar case, were not only labor but also capital and, in the bodies of their children, product. The three-hundred-year story has rarely, if ever, been told so fully or so well." --David Waldstreicher, The Graduate Center, City University of New York, author of Slavery's Constitution: From Revolution to Ratification
