Slaves Without Masters

The prize-winning classic volume by acclaimed historian Ira Berlin is now available in a handsome new edition, with a new preface by the author. It is a moving portrait of the quarter of a million free black men and women who lived in the South before the Civil War and describes the social and economic struggles that were part of life within this oppressive society. It is an essential work for both educators and general readers. Berlin’s books have won many prizes and he is widely recognized as one of the leading scholars on slavery and African American life.

Author Biography

Ira Berlin is a Distinguished University Professor at the University of Maryland in College Park, where he lives. He is the author of Many Thousands Gone, Generations of Captivity, and Slaves Without Masters (The New Press). He co-edited Remembering Slavery (with Marc Favreau and Steven F. Miller), Families and Freedom (with Leslie S. Rowland), and Slavery in New York (with Leslie M. Harris), all published by The New Press. His books have won the Frederick Douglass Prize, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and the Abraham Lincoln Prize, among many other awards.