This “must-read for anyone interested in understanding American history” reframes how we think about slavery, reparations, 19th-century medical education—and the value of life and death (Sven Beckert, author of Empire of Cotton). “A brilliant resurrection of the forgotten people who gave their lives to build our country.” —Isabel Wilkerson, author of Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents In life and in death, slaves were commodities, their monetary value assigned based on their age, gender, health, and the demands of the market. The Price for Their Pound of Flesh is the first book to explore the economic value of enslaved people through every phase of their lives—including preconception, infancy, childhood, adolescence, adulthood, the senior years, and death—in the early American domestic slave trade. Covering the full “life cycle,” historian Daina Ramey Berry shows the lengths to which enslavers would go to maximize profits and protect their investments. Illuminating “ghost values” or the prices placed on dead enslaved people, Berry explores the little-known domestic cadaver trade and traces the illicit sales of dead bodies to medical schools. This book is the culmination of more than 10 years of Berry’s exhaustive research on enslaved values, drawing on data unearthed from sources such as slave-trading records, insurance policies, cemetery records, and life insurance policies. Writing with sensitivity and depth, she resurrects the voices of the enslaved and provides a rare window into enslaved peoples’ experiences and thoughts, revealing how enslaved people recalled and responded to being appraised, bartered, and sold throughout the course of their lives. A profoundly humane look at an inhumane institution, The Price for Their Pound of Flesh will have a major impact how we think about slavery, reparations, capitalism, 19th-century medical education, and the value of life and death.

Committed to fulfilling her murdered father's dying wish to help those in need, Kat becomes a prison tutor and develops a strong attraction to her dangerously sexy student, but his role on the night her father died may force them apart forever.

A Pound of Flesh is the first title in the A Pound of Flesh series from fan-fiction superstar Sophie Jackson. Lose your heart to your new bad boy book boyfriend. Wes Carter - sexy, edgy, behind bars, with emotional scars as permanent as the ink on his skin, just waiting to be healed by love... Fans of Samantha Young, Jodi Ellen Malpas, Jamie McGuire, Katy Evans and Prison Break will find this powerful love story utterly addictive and unforgettable. Can true love heal the deepest scars? Wes Carter: Dangerous, brooding and behind bars, Carter's emotional scars are as permanent as the ink on his skin. Kat Lane: Vibrant and gutsy, Kat chooses to become a prison tutor in tribute to her father whose murder haunts her. Although worlds apart, when their eyes meet, Carter and Kat's searing attraction is instant. As teacher and student, any relationship is against every rule. But although their love is forbidden, it won't be denied... Loyalty, redemption and all-consuming love against the odds. Check out the whole A Pound of Flesh series: A Pound of Flesh, Love and Always, An Ounce of Hope, Fate and Forever and A Measure of Love.

Groundbreaking look at slaves as commodities through every phase of life, from birth to death and beyond, in early America In life and in death, slaves were commodities, their monetary value assigned based on their age, gender, health, and the demands of the market. The Price for Their Pound of Flesh is the first book to explore the economic value of enslaved people through every phase of their lives—including preconception, infancy, childhood, adolescence, adulthood, the senior years, and death—in the early American domestic slave trade. Covering the full “life cycle,” historian Daina Ramey Berry shows the lengths to which enslavers would go to maximize profits and protect their investments. Illuminating “ghost values” or the prices placed on dead enslaved people, Berry explores the little-known domestic cadaver trade and traces the illicit sales of dead bodies to medical schools. This book is the culmination of more than ten years of Berry’s exhaustive research on enslaved values, drawing on data unearthed from sources such as slave-trading records, insurance policies, cemetery records, and life insurance policies. Writing with sensitivity and depth, she resurrects the voices of the enslaved and provides a rare window into enslaved peoples’ experiences and thoughts, revealing how enslaved people recalled and responded to being appraised, bartered, and sold throughout the course of their lives. Reaching out from these pages, they compel the reader to bear witness to their stories, to see them as human beings, not merely commodities. A profoundly humane look at an inhumane institution, The Price for Their Pound of Flesh will have a major impact how we think about slavery, reparations, capitalism, nineteenth-century medical education, and the value of life and death. Winner of the 2018 Hamilton Book Award – from the University Coop (Austin, TX) Winner of the 2018 Society for Historians of the Early American Republic Book Prize (SHEAR) Winner of the 2018 Phillis Wheatley Literary Award, from the Sons and Daughters of the US Middle Passage Finalist for the 2018 Frederick Douglass Book Prize from Yale University’s Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition

Recent research into the implications of low birth weight may be plagued by unobserved variable bias. It is unclear whether the later-life consequences found to be associated with low birth weight are a true effect of poundage' at birth, or whether this association results from underlying factors related to birth weight such as genetics, gestational age, pregnancy-related behavior, or prenatal environment. In this study, we employ twin comparisons to rule out such unobserved factors and to isolate more precise effects of birth weight on infant mortality. Using data from the 1995-1997 Matched Multiple Birth Database and deducing zygosity based on the sex ratio of twin births, we examine the effects of birth weight for both fraternal and identical twins on both neonatal and post-neonatal mortality. Results suggest that in the neonatal period, low birth weight may partially be acting as a proxy for underlying genetic conditions, but in the post-neonatal period birth weight per se increases the risk of mortality. Thus, it appears that after an initial weeding-out' period in which the more severe ailments associated with genetics may be behind birth weight effects, poundage' itself has a significant impact on life chances net of genes and other pregnancy-specific health or social conditions.