[act-ma] 2/29 The American Slave Coast: A History of the Slave-Breeding Industry

[Charlie Welch]

Authors Ned and Constance Sublette will discuss their new book */The 
American Slave Coast: A History of the Slave-Breeding Industry/* 
(Chicago Review Press; October 1, 2015) on Monday, February 29 at 7pm at 
Porter Square Books in Cambridge. Written for general readers, /The 
American Slave Coast/ is a sweeping history of the United States through 
the prism of American slavery from early colonial days through 
emancipation.

_Praise for /The American Slave Coast/:_

“*The Best History Books of 2015” —**Smithsonian.com* 
<http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/best-history-books-2015-180957554/?no-ist>**

*“10 Can’t Miss History Books of 2015” —**HistoryBuff.com* 
<http://historybuff.com/in-progress-best-2015-history-books/>**

*“Top 10 Books of 2015*” —*Counterpunch* 
<http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/12/18/the-10-best-books-of-2015/>** “/This 
sprawling and unsparing history of the American slave-breeding industry 
may be the most important book of the last decade. It is a vividly 
written, painfully documented alternative history of the grim origins of 
the political economy of the American republic. As the Sublettes 
convincingly demonstrate, the heinous truth is that from the earliest 
days the American economy was driven by slavery and the most profitable 
business in that abominable enterprise derived from the manufacturing 
and sale of new slaves/.”

Coauthor Ned Sublette: “Slavery in the United States was a 
slave-breeding system. This story of national expansion premised on the 
reproduction of captive humans who were labor, merchandise, and 
collateral, all at once, is horrific, and it’s basic to the story of our 
development as a nation. _It’s not a sidebar to American history, it’s 
central_. It’s particularly important, because despite the best work of 
scholars, American history has always come up against a disinformation 
process that has sanitized it. But sanitized history won’t explain how 
we got to this mess we have today. ”