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University of California Press

About the Book

In his 1999 book, Disposable People, Kevin Bales brought to light the shocking fact of modern slavery and described how, nearly two hundred years after the slave trade was abolished (legal slavery would have to wait another fifty years), global slavery stubbornly persists. In Ending Slavery, Bales again grapples with the struggle to end this ancient evil and presents the ideas and insights that can finally lead to slavery's extinction. Recalling his own involvement in the antislavery movement, he recounts a personal journey in search of the solution and explains how governments and citizens can build a world without slavery.

About the Author

Kevin Bales is the author of The Slave Next Door and Disposable People, both from UC Press. He is also Co-Founder of Free the Slaves, Washington DC, and Professor of Contemporary Slavery at the WIlberforce Institute for the Study of Slavery and Emancipation at the University of Hull. He is the world's leading expert on contemporary slavery.

Reviews

“Tempers horror with hope by outlining local and global actions to liberate as many as 27 million people worldwide from their lacerating bonds.”
O: The Oprah Magazine
“[Bales] makes use of stories and data from his organization's network of activists, operating wherever people are held against their will, controlled through violence and exploited for money. He makes a surprisingly hopeful case for wiping out slavery, based on a spreading revulsion against the practice and better connections between anti-slavery groups pressuring their governments to enforce existing laws.”
Seattle Times
“At one level the book is a call to action, burning with a pamphleteer's zeal, each chapter ending with a What We Can Do list. On the other hand, Bales realizes that despite the urgency of the situation, trafficking in human beings requires slow, systemic, often un-dramatic grassroots responses. . . . The strength of Bales' impassioned book is that he tries to impress upon the reader that you don't have to wait to move the United Nations to make a difference. You can do something right now. But first you have to be aware.”
San Francisco Chronicle
“Shocking, saddening, angering and inspiring, this volume reveals in full a side of the global market many Americans simply do not know about, clueing readers in on ‘the extent of their own involvement in global slavery,’ and the unthinkable injustices that could be taking place even in their local communities.”
Publishers Weekly
"None of us is truly free while others remain enslaved. The continuing existence of slavery is one of the greatest tragedies facing our global humanity. Today we finally have the means and increasingly the conviction to end this scourge and to bring millions of slaves to freedom. Read Kevin Bales's practical and inspiring book, and you will discover how our world can be free at last."—Desmond Tutu

"Ever since the Emancipation Proclamation, Americans have congratulated themselves on ending slavery once and for all. But did we? Kevin Bales is a powerful and effective voice in pointing out the appalling degree to which servitude, forced labor and outright slavery still exist in today's world, even here. This book is a valuable primer on the persistence of these evils, their intricate links to poverty, corruption and globalization—and what we can do to combat them. He's a modern-day William Lloyd Garrison."—Adam Hochschild, author of Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire's Slaves

"I know modern slavery from the inside, and since coming to freedom I am committed to end it forever. This book shows us how to make a world where no more childhoods will be stolen and sold as mine was."—Given Kachepa, former U.S. slave, recipient of the Yoshiyama Award

"Kevin Bales does not just pontificate from behind a desk. From the charcoal pits of Brazil to the brothels of Thailand, he has seen the victims of modern day slavery. In Ending Slavery, Bales gives us an update on what's happening (and not happening), and a controversial plan to abolish slavery in the 21st century. This is a must read for anyone who wants to learn about the great human rights issue of our times."—Ambassador John Miller, former director of the U.S. State Department's Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons

Awards

  • The Louisville Grawemeyer Award in Ideas Improving World Order 2010, University of Louisville