'This study of the transfer of slave plantations from the eastern Mediterranean to the tropical New World demonstrates [Curtin's] insight into transregional patterns. The detail in his wide-ranging account is impressive, and it provides the reader with an informative overview.' David A. Chappell, Journal of World History

• Preface; Part I. Beginnings: 1. The Mediterranean origins; 2. Sugar planting: from Cyprus to the Atlantic islands; 3. Africa and the slave trade; 4. Capitalism, feudalism, and sugar planting in Brazil; 5. Bureaucrats and freelances in Spanish America; Part II. Seventeenth-Century Transition: 6. The sugar revolution and the settlement of the Caribbean; 7. Anarchy and imperial control; 8. Slave societies on the periphery; Part III. Apogee and Revolution: 9. The slave trade and the West African economy in the eighteenth century; 10. Atlantic commerce in the eighteenth century; 11. The democratic revolution in the Atlantic basin; 12. Revolution in the French Antilles; Part IV. Aftermath: 13. Readjustments in the nineteenth century; 14. The end of slavery in the Americas; Retrospect.