• List of plates; List of figures; List of maps; Acknowledgements; Prologue: tragedy and sacrifice in the history of slavery; 1. The political economy of slavery in Africa; 2. Why Africans? The rise of the slave trade to 1700; 3. Slavery and the African population: a demographic model; 4. The quantitative impact of the slave trade, 1700–1900; 5. The economics and morality of slave supply; 6. Patterns of slave life; 7. Transformations of slavery and society, 1650–1900; 8. The end of slavery; 9. The world and Africa; Appendix 1: slave prices; Appendix 2: the demographic simulation; Notes; bibliography; Index.

"When American scholars examine slavery, more often than not they focus on the Americas in the nineteenth century. Patrick Manning, to his credit, has taken a broader view of slavery, examining slavery and the slave trade in the Orient and Africa as well as in the Occident...This is a valuable yet provocative book. In a relatively small number of pages, the author makes many (often controversial) causal assertions." Journal of Economic History