Slavery as an industrial system : Ethnological researches.

This work offers a careful, comparative look at slavery not as a moral tragedy alone but as a functional system that once underpinned many societies. Drawing on a wide range of ethnographic reports, the author maps where slave labor thrived among tribal groups and asks what economic, environmental and social factors allowed it to persist. The revised edition expands the geographic survey and refines theoretical arguments, showing how the simpler structures of so‑called “savage” societies can reveal the basic laws that later shaped more complex civilizations.

Readers will find the study grounded in clear data while engaging with broader questions about why free labor eventually replaced bondage in the West. The author balances respect for earlier scholarship with fresh criticism, weaving together insights from prominent sociologists of the time. By treating slavery as an industrial process, the book invites a nuanced understanding of how human societies organize work and power.