A worthwhile purchase for collections, this series places slavery in context in North America and the world, provides a well-researched history of slavery and African Americans in the U.S., and explains the impact slavery had on the country. The large-size, well-spaced type is enhanced by sidebars and black-and-white archival art. Each volume begins with a series overview. Reading list, timeline, websites. Glos., ind.

This six-volume series provides an overview of slavery in the Americas from the sixteenth century through the end of Reconstruction. Although the books cover slavery in North and South America, the focus is on the United States, with volumes on the Underground Railroad, Reconstruction, and the American Civil War. Three additional titles describe slave trade, life under slavery, and slave rebellions, including slavery within Afro-Caribbean and Latin American peoples. Slave Rebellions, one of the less successful of the series, suffers most from the limitations of its subject matter in pages of repetitive explanations of the reasons why slaves fought back, alternating with laundry lists of legislation aimed at preventing slave revolts. The text is also marred by a few grammatical slips. Worth's volume, African Americans During Reconstruction, embraces economic determinism in supporting the thesis that after 1877 newly freed African Americans fell back into another kind of slavery-economic servitude brought about by lack of educational opportunities, the sharecropper system, and Jim Crow laws. The virtues of this set of curriculum-based titles include an uncluttered layout, a readable typeface, and wide margins. Sidebars and shaded text blocks provide additional facts and biographical sketches. The publishers happily avoided the temptation to colorize the many black-and-white interior illustrations. Citations and source notes are lacking in all volumes. Although no doubt useful in media centers and public libraries, this series, if purchased as a complete set, is over-priced.-Jamie S. Hansen.