Soul by Soul

Life Inside the Antebellum Slave Market

By: Walter Johnson

Narrated by: Tom Perkins

Soul by Soul tells the story of slavery in antebellum America by moving away from the cotton plantations and into the slave market itself, the heart of the domestic slave trade. Taking us inside the New Orleans slave market, the largest in the nation, where 100,000 men, women, and children were packaged, priced, and sold, Walter Johnson transforms the statistics of this chilling trade into the human drama of traders, buyers, and slaves, negotiating sales that would alter the life of each. What emerges is not only the brutal economics of trading but the vast and surprising interdependencies among the actors involved.

©1999 The President and Fellows of Harvard College (P)2017 Tantor

Critic reviews

"The evil business of slavery has seldom been exposed with so much humanity and insight as in this eloquent study, scholarly yet wholly accessible, a compelling cross-sectional microcosm of millions of human tragedies." ---Publishers Weekly Starred Review

Heartbreaking

Well written, articulate, heart wrenching, and emotionally stirring. A very good history book Worth reading.