The Nature of Slavery: Environment and Plantation Labor in the Anglo - Atlantic World.

The article reviews *The Nature of Slavery: Environment and Plantation Labor in the Anglo-Atlantic World* by Katherine Johnston, which examines the development of the racist belief that Black people were uniquely suited to labor in hot climates while White people were not. Johnston argues that these ideas emerged in the eighteenth century as contested rhetorical tools to justify slavery’s expansion rather than as foundational beliefs from the seventeenth century. The book highlights the role of climate perceptions, especially in colonial Georgia, and shows how planters, physicians, and others shaped and perpetuated these narratives despite contemporary skepticism. Johnston’s work contributes to climate history and early Atlantic studies by revealing the complex interplay between environment, race, and labor in the history of slavery.