The Atlantic Slave Trade Summary

‘The Atlantic Slave Trade’ was authored by the Historian Herbert Klein in 1999 to account for the history of the Trans-Atlantic trade that saw thousands and thousands of African slaves across the sea to become property. The historian attempts to eliminate the myths that surround these events and the consequent misperceptions derived from them and accepted as facts across cultures. The facts that he presents are backed up by statistics and as such have a lot of weight. While his book is enlightening, it undermines the brutality of some events by giving a somewhat private account.
The book contains several mind-boggling observations throughout its writings. For instance, Klein observes that the sale of African for sales had little to do with the notion of the inferiority of their race. He asserts that it was a result of the market conditions of the ear that demanded a high amount of labor thus increasing the request (Klein, 18). Slave labor was a significant part of the developing global economy. He explains that European goods were highly demanded in Africa as well as other regions of the world and slaves were part of the capital
As enlightening as the book is, some depictions of some events are questionable. One such event is the Middle Passage. Although his account does seem brutal mostly due to the events, he argues that they may not have been as gory as they have been described. He supports his claims by illustrating the statistics of the deaths that occurred during the journey were much fewer than those that died on their way to the ship (Klein, 130). The historian also argues against the tight packing of the slaves on the ship. He defends the claim by stating that the ships had to be light enough to travel across the sea as fast as possible and safe enough to ensure that the slaves remained alive long enough to be sold and to make a profit (Klein