Why did two Iberian offshoots, Brazil and Cuba, monopolize the demand for an awful traffic in African slaves well into the nineteenth century? In doing so, did they reinvent slavery as a modern institution in the Americas? Rafael Marquese, Tâmis Parron, and Márcia Berbel, three scholars at the University of São Paulo, offer the first overview of the politics of Atlantic slavery to properly include the role of Spain, Portugal, and Brazil fully. This translation of a 2010 Portuguese edition makes a strong addition to a growing set of books, many by distinguished historians, that compare the dreadful trajectories of slave societies in the Americas, their fit within global circuits of capital and empire, and their tragic legacies. Despite a well-crafted overview of the historiography and timely inclusion of the Iberian narrative, the authors of the book under review too often take their elite historical subjects at their word. That...

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