What is a Slave Society?

Interrogates the traditional binary 'slave societies'/'societies with slaves' as a paradigm for understanding the global practice of slaveholding.

1. Framing the question: what is a Slave Society? Noel Lenski; Part I. Ancient and Late Antique Western Societies: 2. Ancient Greece as a 'Slave Society' Peter Hunt; 3. Roman slavery and the idea of 'Slave Society' Kyle Harper and Walter Scheidel; 4. Ancient slaveries and modern ideology Noel Lenski; Part II. Non-Western Small-Scale Societies: 5. The nature of slavery in small-scale societies Catherine Cameron; 6. Native American slavery in global context Christina Snyder; 7. Slavery as structure, process, or lived experience, or why slave societies existed in pre-contact tropical America Fernando Santos-Granero; 8. Slavery in societies on the frontiers of centralized states in West Africa Paul Lovejoy; Part III. Modern Western Societies: 9. The colonial Brazilian 'Slave Society': potentialities, limits and challenges to an interpretative model inspired by Moses Finley Aldair Carlos Rodrigues; 10. What is a Slave Society? The American South Robert Gudmestad; 11. Islands of slavery: archaeology and Caribbean landscapes of intensification Theresa Singleton; Part IV. Non-Western State Societies: 12. Was nineteenth-century Eastern Arabia a 'Slave Society'? Matthew Hopper; 13. Slavery and society in East Africa, Oman, and the Persian Gulf Bernard K. Freamon; 14. Ottoman and Islamic societies: were they 'Slave Societies'? Ehud Toledano; 15. A microhistorical analysis of Korean Nobis through the prism of the lawsuit of Damulsari Kim Bok-rae; 16. 'Slavery so Gentle': a fluid spectrum of Southeast Asian conditions of bondage Anthony Reid; Conclusion. Intersections: slaveries, borderlands, edges James F. Brooks.