"A must read for any social historian of the region.”—The American Historical ReviewThe individual lives of African slaves in the Middle East, with a new afterword, new in paperbackIn the nineteenth century hundreds of thousands of Africans were forcibly migrated northward to Egypt and other eastern Mediterranean destinations, yet relatively little is known about them. Studies have focused mainly on the Mamluk and harem slaves of elite households, who were mostly white, and on abolitionist efforts to end the slave trade, and most have relied heavily on Western language sources. In recent decades new sources have become available, ranging from Egyptian religious and civil court and police records to rediscovered archives and accounts in Western archives and libraries. Along with new developments in the study of African slavery these sources provide a perspective on the lives of non-elite trans-Saharan Africans in nineteenth century Egypt and beyond. The nine essays in this volume examine the lives of slaves and freed men and women in Egypt and the region.Contributors:Kenneth M. Cuno, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USAY. Hakan Erdem, Sabanci University, Istanbul, TurkeyMichael Ferguson, Concordia University, CanadaEmad Ahmad Helal Shams al-Din, Suez Canal University, EgyptLiat Kozma, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, IsraelGeorge Michael La Rue, Clarion University of Pennsylvania, USAAhmad A. Sikainga, Ohio State University, USAEve M. Troutt Powell, University of Pennsylvania, USATerence Walz Independent scholar, Washington, DC, USA
