The acclaimed historian of slavery Robin Blackburn presents a novel interpretation of slavery and emancipation in the Americas, tracing the importance of the peculiar institutionA" to the Rise of the WestA" as well as to the discourse of human rights that looms large in local and global politics today. Arguing that watershed events--led or defined by key figures such as Thomas Paine, Toussaint L'Ouverture, Louis Pierrot, Thomas Clarkson, Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln and Antonio Bento--played a pivotal role not only in the emergence of abolitionist ideas but also in shaping the West, The American Crucible provides a thorough, engaging account of the oppressive regimes of the New World. Blackburn shows how the history of slavery and the movements of opposition helped to forge the political and social ideals we live by today.