A Brief History of World Slavery: What Happened, Why It Happened, And What We Should Do About It Paperback – October 7, 2019

Because of all the social unrest going on with the Black Lives Matter protests and riots, I looked for a book on the history of slavery. This is a short read that made me rethink all the rhetoric I hear daily.

I enjoyed this book. The book was easy to read and introduces a lot of topics to research further. It does only scratch the surface of a long history. A solid introductory source to this topic for sure.

I bought this book lazily, without reading the reviews. The author describes himself as a ‘Philosopher’, but judging by his skimmed popular history research, he is fully as lazy as I am. He condisendingly places previous generations and societies, including the Greeks, in a developmental phase of maturity.This was apparently tollerated by God, who was waiting for a more enlightened humanity to remove slavery from its role in a market economy. To say this author comes with his own agenda, is putting the point too lightly. This book is a clumsy attempt to justify the past and current attitudes, towards race discrimmination in the United States.

This book is quite simple and easy to understand. I believe it covers most of the main concepts regarding slavery such that slavery was in every major civilization on the planet and still continues today. The author exerts that slavery is bad but our immature primitive ancestors did not know any better. The book asserts that we should not be blaming the ignorance of the past for being ignorant and immature. The book also points out that virtually every civilization either had slaves or were slaves and this trend went back-and-forth over the course of human history. The book says that reparations are silly for the reasons stated above. The book lacks some references but it does give some. The book explains how Africans sold their own people as slaves and, importantly, that the economic stability of the west was not based on African-Americans being slaves. Explains that slavery was a very small part of the overall economy and even though slavery resulted in the cotton industry during the time of slavery being the number one industry, it’s still made very little contribution to the overall economy of the United States in the south where most slavery existed and where in the north no slavery existed. Overall this is a good starter book on this topic

This book reads like a report one might write as a thesis in an undergraduate history course. There is a lack of primary source material and an overabundance of personal propounding.There is factual information in this book, in the same way one could say "there have been wars in humanity's past" and be factually accurate. However, the author spends large segments of the book opining on slavery and the right and wrong of it, almost as a caveat to his point to soften the viewpoint he is presenting. While the beginning of the book works to establish slavery as a norm and result of the times and nature of life, Chapter 5 resumes a concept presented in the beginning which didn't really serve to help the aforementioned point about the life-and-times, that point was: God was allowing humans to be children. Chapter 5 takes it further and attempts to describe the human condition according to God, and floats the concept of Erickson's 8 Stages of Psychosocial Development but only as something the reader should Google.This aspect of the book, which I found most unacceptable, was the author positing why God would allow slavery. It is not a matter of whether the author believed himself correct or incorrect in his postulations, but such speculation has no place in a historical document. Do not conflate my meaning: religion has played a shaping role throughout the course of time. It has produced numerous important figures, institutions and events. Religion and its ramifications are well worth discussion. To speak for God, and further, to create a God in this book as an external overseer which the author is comfortable speaking with authority as to the hows and the whys this potentate would "allow" slavery, is not something which belongs in a history document. Baring a transcendent grasp of the Bible, and I'd also argue the Bhagavad-Gita, Hermetics, Alchemy and Buddhism, to name a few, one should avoid speaking for God, and if one insists, be damn sure to not tell people how to perceive it. This understanding of the Bible, and of God, that I received from this book, does not help the author's case.This book is lazy history. It is history with an agenda. The author does not even have a bad point about reparations and that it is important to consider the full history of slavery in order to discuss the issue in the United States. Or that it is a critical issue, the full understanding of which is absolutely necessary. However, that is not what this book does. It left me wanting ACTUAL history, ACTUAL research.I would not wish this author failure, or that his books be looked down upon. If you are looking for Truth, though, it is not to be found here.

Good study with simplicity and a practical approach. Great for any reader or learner. Highly recommend for any reader or scholar.

Gives context to the issue of slavery. Slavery has existed among all racial groups throughout history. If you could go far enough back in your lineage, you would almost certainly find connections to both slaves and slave owners, no matter what your skin color.The author does speculate on why God has allowed slavery to exist, and why the Bible does not explicitly condemn it. While I do not necessarily agree with all his conclusions, the questions are important and his answers are food for thought.

"A Brief History of World Slavery" gave me a general overview of slavery from the practice in ancient times through modern day slavery in various forms. I was interested in knowing more about when, how, and why slavery began and what forms still exist today. Dr. Rogers answered my questions in terms that I could understand and relate to. I discovered that nearly everyone on the planet has descendants who were slaves or owned slaves. All of us have slavery, of one type or another, in our backgrounds from past generations.I feel like I have just completed a Sociology course in “Slavery: One Horrific Social Injustice Throughout the Ages”. Thank you, Dr. Rogers for an informative, well written, easy-to-read summary of the history of slavery in the world

I bought this book, as I was trying to educate myself on the subject of slavery, given the current events in the USA. I was severely disappointed with this book, because what I received was a simplistic, politically motivated and repetitive book, written by a White, Conservative male from a Christian perspective. This book is now going into the recycle bin, as that is all it is fit for.