This book offers a comparative analysis of the major systems of
servitude present in the world since 1500. Slavery, serfdom, debt
bondage, indentured service and convict labour all provided labour
and service through the legal subjection of one person to another,
but remained very different. By comparison and contrast, this study
seeks to establish their distinctive character.
"Servitude in Modern Times" concentrates on the forms of servitude
that figured in the process of early modernization: notably the
white bonded labour, convict and indentured, used to settle North
America; the slave systems of the Americas and the Ottoman Empire;
and the serf regimes of central and eastern Europe. It also
examines the servitude that survived the emancipations of the
nineteenth century: the endurance of slavery and debt bondage in
Africa and Asia; the extensive use of indentured service on
colonial plantations; the forced labour provided by the
concentration camps of Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany. Traditional
assumptions are challenged: M. L. Bush argues against the standard,
neo-abolitionist view that the servile were powerless victims,
proposing that, in most cases, they ingeniously succeeded in
acquiring rights and liberties. He shows how servitude contributed
to the modernizing process by compensating for the shortage of
waged labour which was frequently encountered by early capitalism.
In this respect the book challenges the progressiveness with which
modernization has normally been depicted.
"Servitude in Modern Times "will be of great interest to students
and scholars in history, politics and sociology, as well as to a
general public horrified by man's inhumanity to man.
General
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