Carry Me Back is a study of the slave trade in national perspective. It explores the origins of the slave trade; the rise and fall of the cotton kingdom; the growth of a market economy in the South and the role slave labor played in it; the abolitionist attack on slavery; the slave trade's effect upon the black and white South; and the kinds of local, regional, and national politics debates the slave trade sparked. Steven Deyle peppers the manuscript with descriptions of how the slave trade worked, the people involved in it, and outsiders' observations of the practice. By looking at the impact of the slave trade on the North in an empirical manner, this manuscript distinguishes itself even from the recent award-winning books on the slave trade. By demonstrating the centrality of the slave trade to antebellum American life more broadly this will be a significant book for a wider American history audience. This book promises to be a strong addition to the landmark histories of slavery on the Oxford list, including the works of David Brion Davis, Sterling Stuckey, and John Blassingame. Like Walter Johnson's SOUL BY SOUL, it should be reach a wide audience of American historians.