The Slave Next Door: Human Trafficking and Slavery in America Today »

Kevin Bales, President of Free the Slaves in Washington, D.C. (www.freetheslaves.net) and Professor of Sociology at Roehampton University London in England, is the author of Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy and Understanding Global Slavery (both from UC Press), among other books. Ron Soodalter, historian, folklorist, and lecturer, is the author of Hanging Captain Gordon: The Life and Trial of an American Slave Trader, as well as articles on the historic and modern slave trade, the Civil War, and the American West. A respected Lincolnian scholar, he serves on the Board of the Abraham Lincoln
Institute.

"Once again, Kevin Bales and Ron Soodalter make us confront a tragic reality—there are as many as 27 million people trapped in modern slavery worldwide.
In this book, we hear the voices of survivors and those who are fighting every day for freedom."—Congressman John Conyers, Jr., Chair of the House Judiciary Committee

"Most Americans believe that slavery in our country ended with the Emancipation Proclamation. They are wrong. As Kevin Bales and Ron Soodalter document in this excellent volume, human bondage is a reality for thousands of children, women and men living in the United States. The Slave Next Door exposes slavery in today's America in all its forms, and sounds a call to arms to government, corporations, and private citizens alike."—Kerry Kennedy, Founder, Robert F. Kennedy Center for Human Rights

"This is a book to make you angry. From Florida field workers who pick some of the fruits and vegetables we eat to prisoners in China who make desk lamps we can buy at Wal-Mart, Bales and Soodalter show us the manifold ways that unfree labor is woven into the American economy. And, most important, they show us what we can do to stop it."—Adam Hochschild, author of Bury the Chains and King Leopold's Ghost

Publishers Weekly

Although most people imagine widespread enslavement only in the historical past, human trafficking continues to exist today in myriad forms around the world. In this informative call to action, Bales (Disposable People), sociologist and president of Free the Slaves, and Soodalter (Hanging Captain Gordon), a historian, document routine coercive slave labor in domestic service, prostitution, farm labor, factories, light industry, prisons and mining operations. While many sensational cases have been well publicized, the authors demonstrate that slavery exists in mundane and unexpected forms. Their case studies begin in an American suburb and traverse the globe to urban China and rural Ghana, returning to Los Angeles, Calif., and East Orange, N.J., just a few of 100-plus documented cases in the U.S. The second half of the book focuses on causes and solutions, with a helpful emphasis on how ordinary individuals can recognize and report coercive situations, creating a humane and helpful primer on how to sever the links that create and hide human bondage. (July)

Acknowledgments Part I: Slaves in the Land of the Free
1. The Old Slavery and the New
2. House Slaves
3. Slaves in the Pastures of Plenty
4. Supply and Demand
5. New Business Models
6. Eating, Wearing, Walking, and Talking Slavery Part II: The Final Emancipation
7. Slaves in the Neighborhood
8. States of Confusion
9. The Feds
10. A Future without Slavery Appendix: For Further
Information

Notes