Until his death in 2018, Ira Berlin was one of the preeminent historians of American slavery. He was the author of Many Thousands Gone, Generations of Captivity, and Slaves Without Masters (The New Press). He co-edited Remembering Slavery (with Marc Favreau and Steven F. Miller), Families and Freedom (with Leslie S. Rowland), and Slavery in New York (with Leslie M. Harris), all published by The New Press. His books have won the Bancroft Prize, the Frederick Douglass Prize, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and the Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize, among many other awards.