Atlas of the Transatlantic Slave Trade (The Lewis Walpole Series in Eighteenth-Century Culture and History)
*Starred Review* Based on the groundbreaking, free Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database, which tracks approximately 35,000 slave-trade voyages (about 80 percent of all of them ever made), the information presented here is a result of a collaboration between African American studies programs at Harvard and Emory Universities and features contributions from scholars from all over the world. The atlas is organized around the 189 maps that were created especially for this volume. The maps, in turn, are broken down into six major categories: �Nations Transporting Slaves from Africa,� �Ports Outfitting Voyages in the Transatlantic Slave Trade,� �The African Coastal Origins of Slaves and the Links between Africa and the Atlantic World,� �The Experience of the Middle Passage,� �The Destinations of Slaves in the Americas and Their Links with the Atlantic World,� and �Abolition and Suppression of the Transatlantic Slave Trade.� The scope of coverage is from 1501 to 1867.   Users looking for statistics will be delighted by the plethora of tables and charts, ranging from the broad to the specific. An example of the former is �Estimated Number of Slaves Carried on Vessels Leaving Major Coastal Regions of Africa,� while an example of the latter is �List of Sick and Dying Slaves on Board Ship Brandenbourg, 1791�1792.� Yet the personal and human side of the story of the slave trade is not buried under numbers here. Numerous examples of primary resources, such as poems, diary entries, and contemporaneous literary selections, are included. Photographs of artifacts, like metal branding irons and handwritten records of deaths on specific voyages, lend poignancy to the story.   Information is presented in small, easily digestible bits, making this appropriate for students,  yet the maps and tables are detailed enough to be of use to serious academic researchers. The large size of the volume, along with its gorgeous, colorful maps and illustrations, makes this nearly as much a work of art as a reference work, and it would be an excellent addition to nearly any reference collection. --Michael Tosko