To his two major histories of ideas about slavery, The Problem of
Slavery in Western Culture and The Problem of Slavery in the Age of
Revolution, Yale historian Davis adds an independent, complementary
study - anticipating his third volume, The Problem of Slavery in
the Age of Emancipation - of what he calls, tellingly, "the
momentous shift from 'progressive' enslavement to 'progressive'
emancipation." Built into that formulation are changes in the idea
of progress - social and moral progress. (Slavery's role in
economic progress, much disputed by historians, is secondary to
Davis - but his findings bear on the issues.) In his first section,
"How 'Progress' Led to European Enslavement of Africans," Davis
traces the expansion of slavery in company with commercial and
imperial expansion - from the Muslims, to the Mediterranean
peoples, to the 17th-and 18th-century mercantile powers. These
societies, he stresses, were the great innovators and carriers of
civilization (but "slaves themselves were often indispensable
carriers of technical and even managerial skills"). How was it,
then, that slavery, "generally accepted to be a necessary and
'progressive' institution" until the 1760s, in cosmpolitan centers
far removed from plantation agriculture, came shortly to be seen as
"the uneconomical vestige of a barbarous age"? This brings Davis'
crucial argument - in Part II, "Redeeming Christianity's
Reputation" - that, in self-defense against Enlightenment
strictures, British evangelicals embraced and propounded
abolitionism (after the 1791 Haitian revolution, as a safeguard
against disorder); that abolition appealed to 19th-century liberals
as proof that "public virtue and enlightenment could keep pace with
material advance." The final, ironic twist comes in Part III,
"Abolishing Slavery and Civilizing the World," where Davis shows
that, in their zeal to wipe out African slavery, the British
subjugated Africa (and in their world-crusade, disrupted the
world). These intricate and subtle arguments are pursued through
myriad concrete examples and close, precise analysis. "Along with
the rosy picture of humanitarian accomplishments, the colonial
nations presented excuses for the persistence of 'domestic slavery'
and the necessity of certain forms of compulsory labor." Davis
doesn't polemicize, he sees ideology as a force. With a work of
such scope and originality, so many scholarly and historical
subthemes (among the latter, the role of the Jews, the character of
Cuban and Brazilian abolitionism), there are bound to be
objections. But Davis has moved the discussion of both slavery and
progress to fertile new ground. (Kirkus Reviews)
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