This valuable volume studies various facets of the problem of slavery in the later medieval eastern Mediterranean. The supply of slaves to Mamluk Egypt is its primary focus. N. Housley opens part 1, “Religious and Cultural Contexts,” by aptly framing the slave trade neither as a history of norms, which were unstable to begin with, nor simply as one of practice. K. Franz's “Slavery in Islam” provides an exceptionally useful and clearly written overview: there was no static reality that can be called “Islamic slavery”; the study of this history is complicated empirically (lack of source material, especially for the most common variety, domestic slavery), conceptually (lack of sophisticated Arabic vocabulary denoting the various realities that were subsumed under the word slavery), and methodologically (the gulf separating works of intellectual history from works of social history). Franz bridges the study of ideas with that of action—such a “hybrid approach” is both rare and much needed. M. Frenkel's “The Slave Trade in the Geniza Society” is rich in illustrative examples and shows that slaves were a key component of Jewish households. Jewish traders, however, were largely squeezed out of the slave trade. Finally, J. Pahlitzsch argues that slavery carried on in the late Byzantine Empire, in spite of some criticism. By norm, slaves were to be barbarians enslaved in war. In practice, Greeks found themselves on the receiving end of slavery. Constantinople remained an active slave market and a vital link in the Mamluk slave trade. While the section title overpromises, the contributions are on point.

In a short and awkwardly placed—yet lucid—part 2, Y. Frenkel and A. Mazor turn to the Mamluks themselves. Mamluks, the religious establishment, and bureaucrats made up Egypt's elite, while the local population functioned as the exploited class. Ethnic and racial stereotypes rationalized the enslavement of Turks. In Cairo, sultans and commanders alike purchased the slaves, converted them to Islam, and trained them. Training started with young boys, and manumission with young adults. The educators were eunuchs, serving as a buffer between adult Mamluks and adolescent novices. Drills aside, the education centered on the Quran, law, prayers, and writing. The Mamluks thus became expert soldiers, respectful of the religious establishment.

A sizable part 3 probes various aspects of Westerners’ involvement in the slave trade. M. Balard offers two well-structured chapters, D. Quirini-Popławska provides a good summary of Venetian expansion in the Black Sea, and G. Christ contributes a chapter on the Venetian slave trade in Alexandria. E. M. Hierro's overview of Catalan activities in the early fourteenth century opens with substantial background information about the company. As Byzantine mercenaries, the Catalans captured Muslims in Anatolia, and then pillaged the northern Aegean shores, enslaving large numbers of peasants and monks. The Catalans brought a lot of slaves with them to Attica, but there is no evidence that the polity they founded there functioned as a slave state. The gem in this section is Annika Stello's chapter on Caffa. It is not obvious why Stello's chapter is not included in part 4, given how strongly it contributes to that part's argument.

The last section of the volume is both topically coherent and able to drive, quite convincingly, an overall argument. Chapters by R. Amitai, J. Yudkevich, and C. Cluse systematically examine all available primary sources to overturn long-standing generalizations about the presumed exceptional relevance of the Genoese in the supply of slaves to Egypt. While the details will likely remain unclear, the supply of slave soldiers to the Egyptian army did not rely on a single player, and land routes through Anatolia were far more important than is generally assumed.

The volume suffers from flaws common to edited works in the field: much delayed production, a partial expansion from a narrowly conceived core and thus also a misleadingly comprehensive title, and a lack of attention to conceptual questions. Finally, the volume has one noteworthy shortcoming of its own. S. P. Karpov argued the relevance of the land route for the delivery of slaves to Egypt already in the 1980s. This fact is not adequately acknowledged, while the importance of the so-called Ehrenkreutz's thesis, which the volume demolishes, is rather overstated.

Its mostly common flaws aside, Slavery and the Slave Trade in the Eastern Mediterranean is a welcome contribution worthy of a wide distribution and readership. Several of its chapters can be fruitfully used in class.