A great deal has been written about slavery in the ancient world, but, unfortunately, some of the information is hidden away in scholarly books and journals often inaccessible. The merit of this short, but authoritative work [Slavery: From the Rise of Western Civilization to the Renaissance] is that it makes available to the general reader many of the findings of scholars intent on their own special interests. Meltzer, widely known for numerous works on black history and social reform, writes directly and without sentimentality, making visible the entire pattern of slavery in human history, and in a manner which never fails to point up man's inhumanity to man. What emerges with especially graphic force is the life, the hopes and fears, of the slaves themselves.

Francis D. Lazenby, in his review of "Slavery: From the Rise of Western Civilization to the Renaissance," in Library Journal (reprinted from Library...