Robin Blackburn (born 1940) is a British historian, a former editor of New Left Review (1981-99), an author of essays on the collapse of Soviet Communism, on the "credit crunch" of 2008, and of books on the history of slavery and on social policy. His most celebrated works, American Crucible: Slavery, Emancipation and Human Rights (2011), The Making of New World Slavery: from the Baroque to the Modern, 1492-1800 (1997) and The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery, 1776-1848 (1988), offer an account of the rise and fall of colonial slavery in the Americas, contributing to the emerging field of "Atlantic history". He has also published histories of Social Security, and critiques of the "financialisation of everyday life" and of the privatization of pension provision.
Blackburn was educated at Oxford and the LSE. Between 2001 and 2010 he was Distinguished Visiting Professor of Historical Studies at The New School in New York City. He is currently Professor of Sociology and Leverhulme research fellow at Essex University. He has been a regular contributor to New Left Review since 1962.Continue Reading »
