American slavery / William Dudley, book editor.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 243-247) and index.

Foreword -- Introduction -- Rise and fall of American slavery : a brief overview -- Origins of American slavery -- Atlantic slave trade / Daniel C. Littlefield ; Establishing slavery in the southern colonies / John B. Boles ; Slavery in the northern colonies / Donald R. Wright -- Slavery and the American Revolution -- American slavery : the American Revolution (the demise of slavery in the North) / Peter Kolchin ; Failure of gradual emancipation in the South / Gary B. Nash -- House divided : American slavery in the Antebellum era -- Missouri Compromise of 1820 / Roger L. Ransom ; John C. Calhoun and the Southern defense of slavery / Nathaniel Weyl & William Marina ; Abolitionist movement provokes the South / William W. Freehling ; Social tensions within Southern plantation society / Ronald Takaki ; Fugitive slaves exacerbate the sectional crisis over slavery / James Oakes ; Slavery and sectional tensions in the 1850s / John Hope Franklin & Albert A. Moss Jr. -- Civil War and the end of American slavery -- Slaves seek freedom in the Civil War / Merton L. Dillon ; Abraham Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation / James M. McPherson ; How slaves responded to their emancipation / Leon F. Litwack ; Reconstruction : the aftermath of emancipation and Civil War / David W. Blight -- Was the Civil War necessary to end slavery? -- War was not necessary to end American slavery / Jeffrey Rogers Hummel ; Significance of America's Civil War and abolition of slavery in world history / Robert W. Fogel.

A collection of essays that examine the influence slavery had on American history, politics, literature, and culture.