Challenging the boundaries of slavery

David Brion Davis offers a comprehensive look at American slavery, tracing its origins from the ancient world through the era of exploration and into the New World. He examines how the American Revolution paradoxically excluded enslaved people from the dream of liberty and equality, and how an explosive conflict in 1819 over slavery's expansion pointed toward revolutionary cultural changes.

The book explores movements to colonize Black individuals outside the U.S., the African-American impact on abolitionism, and the South's efforts to justify and export slavery, ultimately leading to the Civil War and emancipation.