A Human History of the Transatlantic Slave Trade: On the Publication of the Russian Translation of “Slave Ship” by Marcus Rediker

This article examines Marcus Rediker’s significant contribution to the study of the transatlantic slave trade – Slave Ship: A Human History – which is now available for the first time in Russian translation. In this monograph, the Russian reader will find a fresh approach to the centuries-long history of the traffic in human beings that occurred between the African continent and the New World. Employing social history methods, Rediker, an American historian of note, focuses on two key elements of the transatlantic slave trade – the workings of the slave ship and the tragedy of the human beings it transported. Concentrating on the 18th century, Rediker makes effective use of a rich collection of primary sources including materials from naval archives, court records, memoirs, diaries, and letters. This variety of sources enables him not only to examine the operation of a slave ship in minute detail, but to portray the key figures who plied the slave trade – captains, cabin boys, doctors, and sailors – and the ordeals undergone by male and female slaves – the ship’s “human cargo” – themselves. Rediker is adept at presenting the personal stories and typical experiences of the individuals involved in this unholy enterprise, as well as the strategies they employed in adapting to and resisting, as the case may be, this system of unrelenting violence. The book is notable for its original methodology and abundance of facts, which Russian researchers will find very useful in their analyses of structures of systematic violence in different societies and cultural settings.