Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1975. First Edition. Hardcover with Dust Jacket. NEAR FINE/Very Good. Second printing. 310pp. + foldout maps of Jamaica and Guinea. 8vo, sewn binding in mauve cloth with gilt stamped spine lettering. Some very faint foxing, otherwise a clean, sharp copy with sound binding; DJ tips worn, torn 2' at spine tail, now wrapped in mylar. A scarce hardcover copy of Patterson's seminal monograph, uncommonly seen with the dust jacket. The Sociology of Slavery was Patterson's first academic work, a study of the unique of the unique structure and functioning of the bounded society created exclusively for the production of sugar from slave labor in his native Jamaica. Perenially in-print, it was quickly received as a foundational work in the study of new-world African slavery. 'What distinguishes Patterson's account is his detailed description of the lives and culture of slaves under this repressive regime. He analyses the conditions of slave life and work on the plantations, the psychological life of slaves and the patterns and meanings of life and death. He shows that the real-life situation of slaves and enslavers involved a complete breakdown of all major social institutions, including the family, gender relations, religion, trust and morality. And yet, despite the repressiveness and protracted genocide of the regime, slaves maintained some space of their own, and their forced adjustment to white norms did not mean that they accepted them. Slave culture was characterized by a persistent sense of resentment and injustice, which underpinned the day-to-day resistance and large-scale rebellions that were a constant feature of slave society, the last and greatest of which partly accounts for its abolition.' (From the new Polity paperback edition).
