The past few decades have seen an explosion of scholarly and popular writing on ancient and modern slaveries. Much of this work has adopted a comparative perspective, and multiple global histories of enslavement have now appeared in print. Ranging from the Neolithic to the 21st century, this course will offer a survey of the history of human bondage. Topics to be explored include the role of slavery in the rise of the first Neolithic states; the institutionalization of slavery in ancient Mesopotamia, the Greco-Roman Mediterranean, and ancient China; and the proliferation of slave systems elsewhere in Eurasia and on the African continent.
