Ending Slavery

Ending Slavery broadens the scope of the anti-slavery struggle beyond the national and domestic narrative to draw a map of a new transnational and differentiated geography of abolitionism. It aims at complicating our understanding of the antislavery struggle by offering an opportunity to rethink the relationship between the personal and the political in the antebellum period. Focusing on the post-1830 period, Ending Slavery also presents a new and ambitious periodization by extending its historical breadth, through Reconstruction, well into the present to examine contemporary representations and interpretations of the history of abolitionism. The book puts forward not only a reflection on the historiographical and memorial legacies of antislavery activity in the United States, but it also interrogates how this activism partook and still partakes in the long Civil Rights Movement for full social and political equality for African Americans. A collective enterprise that taps into and builds on recent research, the volume brings together historians and African-Americanists, a majority of whom are based in Europe. It ambitions to be a contribution that expands discussions and opens perspectives on the history of abolitionism. Suitable for general readers, students and scholars, Ending Slavery will serve as a useful resource in the area of slavery and Atlantic studies.