David Brion Davis is Sterling Professor of History Emeritus at Yale University. He is noted for his study of slavery and abolitionism. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University. He taught for 14 years at Cornell University before moving to Yale in 1970. He is currently Director Emeritus of Yale's Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition, which he founded in 1998 and directed until 2004. He was President of Organization of American Historians (1988-89) and won the Pulitzer Prize in General Non-Fiction in 1967, as well as the National Book Award, and Bancroft Prize. Yale redirects here. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... This French poster depicting the horrific conditions on slave ships was influential in mobilizing public opinion against slavery. ... Harvard University (incorporated as The President and Fellows of Harvard College) is a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. ... The Organization of American Historians (OAH), formerly known as the Mississippi Valley Historical Association is an organization of historians focusing on American history. ...
His exposition is breathtaking and we should keep his words about his method in mind, for the book's pattern is that of a literal poetics of slavery, a "making" of the idea of slavery both for those who were caught in its web and for those who wish to understand its significations.
In many ways, it is tempting to see the influence of modern literary experimentation and method upon this volume: multiple foci and indeed seemingly discrete events ingathered to form a larger pattern--so that paradox and congruence are given due weight as central to the history and presentation of American slavery.
This is a magisterial essay in itself, Davis moving from the origins of slavery to New World slavery to part of its role in American history.