"Guilt over slavery and its inheritances rightly grips Europe and America. But this electrifying history of its brutality runs deeper and longer across Africa, still now, still hidden away. This erudite book is an eye-opening revelation and a transfixing read." -- Polly Toynbee, Guardian columnist"In masterly fashion, Unbroken Chains sweeps from the trans-Saharan slave trade through indigenous slavery in Ethiopia and Nigeria to the Indian Ocean trade and slavery today. A must-read for anyone interested in African enslavement." -- Christopher Saunders, University of Cape Town"An immense, bold undertaking, placing the dominant trans-Atlantic narrative as one part of a jigsaw that stretches across five millennia and involves the enslavement and trade in humans within Africa itself and across multiple oceans."-- Mary Harper, BBC Africa Editor, and author"Martin Plaut has combined his journalist's eye with scholarship and depth of understanding of Africa to bring to life, through the words of the enslaved, a compelling analysis of the complexity and scale of African enslavement and its continuing impact on current African areas of conflict." -- Mark Bowden, former UN Assistant Secretary General "A powerful narrative that reads like a thriller.

Martin Plaut's meticulous research provides a much-needed correction of the myths and misperceptions around a most sordid aspect of our common humanity." -- Mukesh Kapila, author of Against a Tide of Evil"This important book covers the vast canvas of Africa's enslaved peoples, underlining that the abomination of slavery was not confined to the trans-Atlantic trade." -- Sue Onslow, Visiting Professor, King's College London"Expansive and sophisticated, Martin Plaut's book is absolutely essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the long history of slavery, and its ongoing life." -- Kris Manjapra, author of Black Ghost of Empire"An important introduction to a controversial subject. As usual Martin Plaut pulls no punches and provides evidence from ancient Egypt to the modern day to make a compelling case against Africa's rich and powerful."-- Hakim Adi, author of African and Caribbean People in Britain"A superb history . this book is a South African classic, and it will win readers in Africa and globally for decades to come." -- Politics Web"Disrupts the narrative that the history of slavery stems from the horrors of the transatlantic slave trade.

" -- Wits Review"An introduction to the neglected topic of slavery as it operated over several millennia within the wide extent of the African continent. Plaut"s broad account of the means and methods by which African polities procured and used the enforced labour and enslavement of millions of fellow Africans is original in conception, and complements the extensive literature on the European and Arab slave trades out of Africa." -- David Killingray, School of Advanced Study, University of London"The former BBC World Service Africa editor places the now well-documented horrors of the transatlantic slave trade in a wider historical context. Plaut points out that slave trading across the Indian Ocean went on far longer. It was not a foreign import" enslaving prisoners was standard practice in Sokoto and Ethiopia's kingdoms and elsewhere. And slavery is still being practiced on the continent today."-- Michela Wrong, Spectator "Books of the Year""This is a game-changing and potentially controversial contribution to academic and popular discourse around slavery and slave trades (note trades, plural) that should inform debates around reparations, although it ranges well beyond them." --The Round Table.