[The second volume of Meltzer's study of slavery, Slavery II: From the Renaissance to Today,] encompasses slavery as it existed, and in some cases still exists, in Africa, Arabia, China and under the Nazis, and also [gives] a remarkably detailed picture of the everyday existence of slaves in the Americas. As always, Meltzer is a careful historian who looks for the documentable truth behind prevalent generalizations—he gives the lineage of his statistics, citing Curtin's revised estimates of the volume of the Atlantic slave trade and, on such controversial topics as the extent of resistance among American slaves, he presents the opposing views of prominent historians. (Meltzer himself concludes that there is a good deal of evidence of widespread rebellion, both passive and active, but shows that there is room to doubt the scope of some of the more famous conspiracies, such as the Vesey uprising.) The attention...