Philip D. Curtin

Philip Curtin
Born
Philip Dearmond Curtin

(1922-05-22)May 22, 1922
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.
DiedJune 4, 2009(2009-06-04) (aged 87)
West Chester, Pennsylvania, U.S.
NationalityAmerican
Academic background
Alma materSwarthmore College
Harvard University
Academic work
DisciplineHistory
Sub-disciplineAfrica and African slave trade
InstitutionsJohns Hopkins University
Swarthmore College
University of Wisconsin–Madison
Doctoral studentsPatrick Manning (historian)

Philip Dearmond Curtin (May 22, 1922 – June 4, 2009)[1] was a Professor Emeritus of Johns Hopkins University[2] and historian on Africa and the Atlantic slave trade. His most famous work, The Atlantic Slave Trade: A Census (1969) was one of the first estimates of the number of slaves transported across the Atlantic Ocean between the 16th century and 1870, yielding an estimate of 9,566,000 African slaves imported to the Americas.[3] ( Current estimates are that about 12 million to 12.8 million Africans were shipped across the Atlantic over a span of 400 years.[4][5]) He also wrote about how many Africans were taken and from what location, how many died during the Middle Passage, how many actually arrived in the Americas, and to what colonies/countries they were imported.[6] Deirdre McCloskey has described Curtin as the "doyen of African economic historians."[7]

  1. ^ "Prof. Philip D. Curtin". getCITED.org. getCITED Inc. Archived from the original on August 31, 2007. Retrieved March 9, 2007.
  2. ^ "Faculty Directory". Johns Hopkins University. Archived from the original on February 8, 2007. Retrieved March 9, 2007.
  3. ^ Lynn, Martin. "Notes & Queries: How many Africans were transported to the Americas as a result of the European slave trade? Has anyone tried to quantify how many died as a result?", The Guardian. Accessed June 16, 2009.
  4. ^ Ronald Segal, The Black Diaspora: Five Centuries of the Black Experience Outside Africa (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1995), ISBN 0-374-11396-3, p. 4. "It is now estimated that 11,863,000 slaves were shipped across the Atlantic." (Note in original: Paul E. Lovejoy, "The Impact of the Atlantic Slave Trade on Africa: A Review of the Literature", in Journal of African History 30 (1989), p. 368.)
  5. ^ Meredith, Martin (2014). The Fortunes of Africa. New York: PublicAffairs. p. 194. ISBN 978-1610396356.
  6. ^ Curtin, Philip D. (1969). The Atlantic slave trade : a census ([3rd print.] ed.). Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 978-0-299-05404-5.
  7. ^ McCloskey, Deirdre (1997). "Polanyi Was Right, and Wrong" (PDF). Eastern Economic Journal.