Slavery, enslaved persons and abolition of slavery Books

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Book SynopsisFrom the Author of WOMEN, RACE AND CLASS, this is a timely provocation that examines the concept of attaining freedom in light of our current world conflictsIn these newly collected essays, interviews and speeches, world-renowned activist and scholar Angela Y. Davis illuminates the connections between struggles against state violence and oppression throughout history and around the world.Reflecting on the importance of black feminism, intersectionality and prison abolitionism for today''s struggles, Davis discusses the legacies of previous liberation struggles, from the Black Freedom Movement to the South African anti-Apartheid movement. She highlights connections and analyses today''s struggles against state terror, from Ferguson to Palestine.Facing a world of outrageous injustice, Davis challenges us to imagine and build the movement for human liberation. And in doing so, she reminds us that ''Freedom is a constant struggle.''Trade ReviewAngela Davis new book made me think of what Dear Nelson Mandela kept reminding us, that we must be willing to embrace that long walk to freedom. Understanding what it takes to really be free, to have no fear, is the first and most important step one has to make before undertaking this journey. Angela is the living proof that this arduous challenge can also be an exhilarating and beautiful one -- Archbishop Desmond TutuIncisive, urgent, and comprehensive . . . These essays take us back in history to the founders of revolutionary and anti-racist struggle, but they also take us toward the possibility of ongoing intersectional solidarity and struggle. Angela Davis gathers in her lucid words our luminous history and the most promising future of freedom -- Judith ButlerWhether you've grown up with the courage and conscience of Angela Davis, or are discovering her for the first time, Freedom Is a Constant Struggle is a small book that will be a huge help in daily life and action . . . [Davis] exposes facts and makes connections, but also leads in the most important way by example -- Gloria Steinem

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Book SynopsisWINNER OF THE LAMBDA LITERARY LGBTQ SCIENCE FICTION/FANTASY/HORROR AWARDThe water-breathing descendants of African slave women tossed overboard have built their own underwater society-and must reclaim the memories of their past to shape their future in this brilliantly imaginative novella inspired by the Hugo Award-nominated song "The Deep" from Daveed Diggs's rap group clipping.Yetu holds the memories for her people-water-dwelling descendants of pregnant African slave women thrown overboard by slave owners-who live idyllic lives in the deep. Their past, too traumatic to be remembered regularly, is forgotten by everyone, save one-the historian. This demanding role has been bestowed on Yetu.Yetu remembers for everyone, and the memories, painful and wonderful, traumatic and terrible and miraculous, are destroying her. And so, she flees to the surface, escaping the memories, the expectations, and the responsibilities-and discovers a world her people left behind long ago.Yetu will learn more than she ever expected to about her own past-and about the future of her people. If they are all to survive, they'll need to reclaim the memories, reclaim their identity-and own who they really are.Inspired by a song produced by the rap group Clipping for the This American Life episode "We Are In The Future," The Deep is vividly original and uniquely affecting.Trade ReviewSolomon's beautiful novella weaves together a moving and evocative narrative that imagines a future created from the scars of the past. Highly recommended for those interested in sf or fantasy that draws upon the legacies of colonialism and racism to imagine different, exciting types of futures. * Booklist *A compelling story about the power and necessity of history and memory. Do not miss this book. * Ann Leckie *The Deep's slim page count disguises the depth of the work within. Rivers Solomon conjures a vast world in her latest novella, one where history and present day collide and love can change lives * Tor.com *Solomon's text stands alone as a wise, daring, touching, and important addition to the Afrofuturist canon, and one that carries its own rhythmic and melodic grace - not to mention a wholly relevant and righteous gravity * NPR *THE DEEP also has an intriguing premise. . . * SFX *It is beautiful and sad and defiant and triumphant, and it's also a love story * Female First *

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Book SynopsisLonglisted for the Booker Prize, a powerful American debut portraying life after slavery in the vein of WASHINGTON BLACKTrade ReviewThe Sweetness of Water is a fine, lyrical novel, impressive at the level of the sentence, and in its complex interweaving of the grand and the intimate, of the personal and political. In presenting two narratives largely overlooked in traditional renderings of the war, Harris breathes new life into a period of history whose stories have grown stale with overtelling * Observer *An insightful first novel... [a] highly accomplished debut * Sunday Times *This debut novel astonished us as much for its wise, lyrical voice as for its dense realisation of a fictional small town in the American South at a rarely written about moment... We were incredibly impressed by the way it probes themes of trans-historical importance - about race, sexuality, violence and grief - through meticulously-drawn characters and a patient examination of their relationships * The Booker Prize Judges *In the right hands, historical fiction can often capture the truth of our own times more successfully than many contemporary attempts. . . Readers will often forget that this is a debut novel; one of Harris's greatest gifts, aside from those beautifully wrought sentences, is his empathy, his ability to slip inside the skins of these men and women . . . in his unsparing examination of both hatred and deep love, Harris will win over the hearts of many readers * Financial Times *Harris is a writer of great lyricism and power . . . an arresting debut * The i *As I read this masterful novel I kept thinking-this young 29-year-old is a first-time author, so how did he do this? As the best writers can do, Nathan takes us back in time, and helps us to feel we are right there with Prentiss and Landry as they get their first taste of freedom. I rooted for them, and feared for them too * Oprah in Associated Press *[An] ambitious debut novel . . . this is impressive stuff * The Times *That this powerful book is Nathan Harris's debut novel is remarkable; that he's only 29 is miraculous. His prose is burnished with an antique patina that evokes the mid-19th century. And he explores this liminal moment in history with extraordinary sensitivity to the range of responses from Black and White Americans contending with a revolutionary ideal of personhood. . . . Harris stacks the timbers of this plot deliberately, and the moment a spark alights, the whole structure begins to burn hot. If this is an era - and a genre - that has no room for encouragement, THE SWEETNESS OF WATER is finally willing to carve out a little oasis of hope * Washington Post *What a gifted, assured writer Nathan Harris is. He does what all novelists are supposed to do-give birth to vivid characters, people worth caring about, and then get out of their way. The result is better than any debut novel has a right to be. With The Sweetness of Water, Harris has, in a sense, unwritten Gone With the Wind, detonating its phony romanticism, its unearned sympathies, its wretched racism -- Richard RussoHarris' lucid prose and vivid characterization illustrate a community at war with itself, poisoned by pride and mired in racial and sexual bigotry. . . Harris' first novel is an aching chronicle of loss, cruelty, and love in the wake of community devastation * Booklist, starred review *As beautiful as it is violent, this moving novel explores how love can bloom even in the most harrowing of circumstances * Buzzfeed *To open Nathan Harris's first novel is to enter a trance. I can't think of any other book out there quite like it. The richness of his language and the exquisite details of the lives he creates produce a kind of waking dream, equally lyrical and threatening -- Luis Alberto Urrea[An] ambitious debut . . . Harris writes in intelligent, down-to-earth prose and shows a keen understanding of his characters . . . Credible and deeply moving * Publishers Weekly, starred review *An impressive debut by a storyteller with bountiful insight and assurance * Kirkus *[The book's] grave beauty is evident immediately * Library Journal *This stunning debut novel probes the limits of freedom in a society where ingrained prejudice and inequality remain the law of the land * Oprah Daily *Harris's tender debut novel captures the yearning for human connection and the risks of departing from social norms * New York Times *A work of great depth and beauty. * Culturefly *An arresting debut * Scotsman *Absolutely stunning, full of vivid descriptions, gripping tension, dynamically complex characters, and a well-woven story -- Yvonne Battle-FeltonAn epic story of love and grief at an incendiary moment in American history * Daily Mail *

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Book SynopsisThis book sensitively tells the powerful history of Black hair foryounger readers.

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Book SynopsisIn this ground-breaking work, Paul Gilroy proposes that the modern black experience can not be defined solely as African, American, Carribean or British alone, but can only be understand as a Black Atlantic culture that transcends ethnicity or nationality. This culture is thorough modern and, often, overlooked but can deeply enriches our understanding of what it means to be modern.This condition comes out of historical transoceanic experience, established first with the slave trade but later seen in the development of a transatlantic culture. And Gilroy takes us on a tour of the music that, for centuries, has transmitted racial messages and feeling around the world, from the Jubilee Singers in the nineteenth century to Jimi Hendrix to rap. He also explores this internationalism as it is manifested in black writing from the "double consciousness" of W. E. B. Du Bois to the "double vision" of Richard Wright to the compelling voice of Toni Morrison. As a consequence, Black Atlantic charts the formation of a nationalism, if not a nation, within this shared, disasporic culture.Trade ReviewPaul Gilroy is one the most incisive thinkers of his generation...One can only hope that his voice travels far and wide. * Independent *In debates in recent years around questions of race, nation and culture, Paul Gilroy has stood out as an independent, unorthodox and (often for that very reason) exciting new voice. * Times Higher Educational Supplement *Whilst others scarcely put a toe in the water, in The Black Atlantic Gilroy goes in deep and returns with riches. * Guardian *At that moment, in US scholarship, the emphasis was still on minimising the role of the Atlantic slave trade and slavery in the making of capitalism. So to have the Black Atlantic argue so powerfully for its constitutive role in the making of modernity was really important. -- Saidiya HartmanIt was in this book that Gilroy laid out his concept of the 'black Atlantic', the idea that black culture is essentially a hybrid, a product of centuries of exchange, slavery and movement across the Atlantic. Exploring everything from the lives and work of African American philosophers such as WEB Du Bios, to black popular music, Gilroy demonstrates that black culture is both 'local' and 'global', and cannot be constrained within any single national culture. It flows across the black Atlantic of the book's title. The influence of Gilroy's work can be felt not only in modern scholarship but even in the work of the visual artist John Akomfrah. -- David OlusogaThe Black Atlantic, still his most influential work, used the writings of enslaved people and their descendants to demonstrate their centrality to the making of the modern world. * Guardian *He's the foremost intellectual in the United Kingdom: not an if, not a but, not a maybe -- Steve McQueen

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Book SynopsisInspired by true historical events in the Caribbean, River Sing Me Home will break your heart and then lift you up. A soaring story of courage and sacrifice, this novel reminds us of the remarkable strength of hope. A Good Morning America Book Club Pick. Soon to be adapted as a feature film by AL Films and BBC Film.''Every once in a while, a book comes along that is so assured and so powerful you can''t believe it''s a debut.... Eleanor Shearer is a remarkable writer and she brings this story of a mother''s courage to the page with compassion and tenderness'' Natasha Lester, New York Times bestselling author''I was riveted by Rachel''s story. Like the River of its title, this novel sings. A beautiful debut'' Cherie Jones, author of How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House, shortlisted for The Women''s Prize for Fiction''A searing debut full of love and loss... Heartbreaking, hopeful, and unforgeTrade ReviewEvery once in a while, a book comes along that is so assured and so powerful you can't believe it's a debut novel. RIVER SING ME HOME is just such a book . . . Eleanor Shearer is a remarkable writer and she brings this story of a mother's courage to the page with compassion, tenderness and pitch-perfect prose -- Natasha Lester, New York Times bestselling author of The Riviera HouseAn extraordinary odyssey of pain, love, and homecoming . . . RIVER SING ME HOME is a haunting and powerful debut -- Kate Quinn, New York Times bestselling author of The Diamond EyeA strong and beautiful novel that stares into the face of brutality and the heart of love -- Jeanette WintersonEpic and lyrical, a story about love and the power it brings us -- Frank Cottrell-BoyceA searing debut full of love, loss, and the shadows of the past . . . Heartbreaking, hopeful, and unforgettable. Both a powerful ode to the endless depths of a mother's love and an important meditation on what freedom really means, this is the kind of book that will stay with readers for years to come -- Kristin Harmel, New York Times bestselling authorAn extraordinary and gripping debut. Rachel's love for her children resonates through each page as she fights for her freedom and theirs. A must-read! -- Chanel CleetonA powerful story, beautifully told. Shearer skilfully depicts the cruelty of the British slave trade, contrasted with one mother's indomitable love for her children, and her burning will to live. An empathic, elegantly rendered and deeply humane novel -- Jessica MoorA powerful novel that explores how freedom and family are truly defined -- Marie Benedict, New York Times bestselling co-author of The Personal LibrarianRIVER SING ME HOME is a masterclass in how to speak of unspeakable things. A beautiful read -- Meg ClothierRIVER SING ME HOME slices you open . . . and knits you back up again. A powerful account of love, loss, defiance and the lengths to which a mother will go in order to make herself and her family whole again. Breathtaking -- Chikodili EmelumaduLyrical, heartbreaking, thought-provoking . . . A book about love, motherhood and survival that will stay with you long after you've finished it' -- Costanza CasatiI absolutely loved this book and Eleanor Shearer's lyrical prose kept me gripped as the story moved from Barbados to Demerara and Trinidad . . . a beautifully written debut -- Stacey ThomasPropulsive . . . This compelling premise of a mother in search of her children powers a moving and dynamic novel. The pacing is swift, and Shearer writes in clear, energetic prose. There is an accessibility to the language that is refreshing; it buoys the narrative, giving us intimate access to a complex period in history * Guardian *An immersive debut . . . the heart of the novel lies in its celebration of motherhood and female resilience. A tender exploration of one woman's courage in the face of unbelievable cruelty * Observer *The beautifully written depiction of a mother longing for her children makes this transcendent * Publishers Weekly (starred review) *Early readers of RIVER SING ME HOME are evangelical about this story . . . Full of love and compassion, this will be everywhere next year * Stylist *A powerful, gripping and poetic novel about the strength of a mother's love -- Sarra Manning * Red *Such a glorious and compelling story * Prima *A cracking debut * Belfast Telegraph *Hugely profound, hopeful and emotive this is written in lyrical prose that demonstrates Shearer's mastery of language * Glamour *Action-packed, emotionally demanding, richly described, the novel paints an extraordinary portrait of motherly love and hope . . . a thoroughly compelling read * Daily Mail *An intense and absorbing debut * The Times *River Sing Me Home is a fine testament to the women who inspired this debut * The Sunday Times *Lyrical, heart-wrenching and so well crafted -- Goodreads ReviewerA triumph of tragedy and hope -- Goodreads ReviewerAn extraordinary tale of fearlessness, passion, motherly love and hope -- NetGalley ReviewerThis debut novel does exactly what I want historic fiction to do - teach me something while telling me a good story -- Goodreads ReviewerThe most moving, beautiful, heart-breaking yet hopeful book I've read this year. -- Goodreads ReviewerA novel which explored, with courage, care and capability, the illusory nature of freedom at a critical point in West Indian history. I was riveted by Rachel's story and it is a testament to Eleanor's craft that I felt every fraught element of Rachel's journey to finding her children right along with her. Like the River of its title, this novel sings . . . a beautiful debut -- Cherie Jones, Women's Prize for Fiction shortlisted author of How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House

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Book SynopsisAnton de Kom’s We Slaves of Suriname is a literary masterpiece as well as a fierce indictment of racism and colonialism. In this classic book, published here in English for the first time, the Surinamese writer and resistance leader recounts the history of his homeland, from the first settlements by Europeans in search of gold through the era of the slave trade and the period of Dutch colonial rule, when the old slave mentality persisted, long after slavery had been formally abolished. 159 years after the abolition of slavery in Suriname and 88 years after its initial publication, We Slaves of Suriname has lost none of its brilliance and power.Trade ReviewA New Statesman Book of the Year Selected as a Best Book of 2022 by Public Books “one of the most important works of twentieth-century anticolonial literature.” LSE Review of Books “De Kom is to Suriname what Mandela is to South Africa: a heroic patriot, an advocate of the oppressed, and a symbol of resistance against colonialism.” Unherd “Heart-breaking... he succeeds in bringing to painful life the savagery of what is now widely considered the most vicious colonization project ever.” New Internationalist “Almost ninety years after its first appearance, We Slaves of Suriname is still an exemplary description and analysis of Suriname’s history, which has not lost its power of expression. From micro to macro situations, De Kom displays phenomenal psychological insight and an acute sense of the driving forces of class and race.” Gloria Wekker, Professor Emerita, Utrecht University "We Slaves of Suriname is both an analysis of Suriname’s postcolonial predicament and an insurgent commentary on the archives of Dutch writing about Suriname… By interrogating the crater left by colonialism in the landscape of modernity, De Kom produces a text that speaks, avant la lettre, directly to postcolonial concerns." Postcolonial Studies Journal “An astounding work of lyrical fury … De Kom is a towering radical and anticolonial figure, and this book a painful masterpiece.” China Miéville, New Statesman “a classic of anticolonial Black leftist thought” Public Books"The plantation-dominated past that Suriname shares with the wider Caribbean is vividly brought to life in a 'new' book ... Books in English on Suriname are rare, and this one — We Slaves of Suriname — is a gem."Caribbean BeatTable of ContentsTranslator’s NoteIntroductionsFrimangron by Tessa LeuwshaThe Breath of Freedom by Duco van OostrumWhy Anton de Kom Still Inspires Generation after Generation by Mitchell EsajasForeword by Judith de KomWe Slaves of Suriname“Sranan,” our fatherlandThe era of slaveryThe arrival of the whitesEl DoradoThe first settlementsThe Dutch regimeThe slave tradeThe marketEnslavedThe slave womanThe mastersThe punishmentsThe History of Our NationVan Aerssen van Sommelsdyck (1683–1688)The brutesThe forest expeditionsJohan Jacob Mauricius (1742–1751)Governor Crommelin (1752–1768)Governor Nepveu (1770–1779)Buku (decayed into dust)The final chapter for the resistanceSuriname under British ruleThe great fireThe fate of the ethicalWhite settlementFighting the currentGovernors on paradeThe abolition of slaveryFreedom?The great selloutThe era of freedomHow we liveThe essence of autonomyFin de siècleIndentured laborFree laborIn search of goldThe major cropsWhat becomes of those millions?ResultsReunion and farewellNotesGlossary of Surinamese termsIndex

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Book SynopsisThrilling naval action in the Atlantic against a ruthless enemy.

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Book SynopsisThe slave, Saidiya Hartman observes, is a stranger torn from family, home, and country. To lose your mother is to be severed from your kin, to forget your past, and to inhabit the world as an outsider. In Lose Your Mother, Hartman traces the history of the Atlantic slave trade by recounting a journey she took along a slave route in Ghana. There are no known survivors of Hartman's lineage, no relatives to find. She is a stranger in search of strangers, and this fact leads her into intimate engagements with the people she encounters along the way, and with figures from the past, vividly dramatising the effects of slavery on three centuries of African and American history.Trade ReviewAn original, thought-provoking meditation on the corrosive legacy of slavery ... driven by this writer's prodigious narrative gifts. -- Elizabeth Schmidt * The New York Times *One of our most brilliant contemporary thinkers ... She's a theorist and writer who actually changes what's possible in my thought patterns -- Claudia RankineThis is a memoir about loss, alienation, and estrangement, but also, ultimately, about the power of art to remember ... A magnificent achievement. -- Henry Louis Gates JrBy addressing gaps and omissions in accounts of trans-Atlantic slavery ... Hartman has influenced an entire generation of scholars and afforded readers a proximity to the past that would otherwise be foreclosed. -- MacArthur statement[Hartman writes] with striking intimacy, evoking the feelings and the conditions of Black life -- Alexis Okeowo * New Yorker *Praise for Saidiya Hartman: "She was so smart that I thought the windows were gonna blow out, the quickness of her mind and the sharpness of her critique were breathtaking." -- Judith Butler * on meeting Hartman *She's not an 'angry Black woman. She's not Assata Shakur. But what they don't know is that, where Assata Shakur will blow your head off, Saidiya has just put a stiletto between your ribs. -- Frank B. Wilderson III, Chair of the Department of African-American stucies, UC Irivine

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Book SynopsisToni Morrison was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993. She was the author of many novels, including The Bluest Eye, Sula, Beloved, Paradise and Love. She received the National Book Critics Circle Award and a Pulitzer Prize for her fiction and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, America's highest civilian honour, in 2012 by Barack Obama. Toni Morrison died on 5 August 2019 at the age of eighty-eight.Trade ReviewToni Morrison makes me believe in God. She makes me believe in a divine being, because luck and genetics don’t seem to come close to explaining her * Guardian *A beautiful and important book * The Times *Powerful, elemental... The issues Morrison explores go to the root of what humanity is. They could not be more important * Guardian *Left me trembling at the sheer brilliance of its storytelling and the unassailable dignity of its purpose * Evening Standard *So enthralling that you'll want to read it more than once * Sunday Times *

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Book SynopsisEighteenth-century Britain was the world’s leading centre for the slave trade. Bury the Chains by Adam Hochschild, author of the Duff Cooper prize-winning King Leopold's Ghost, charts the history of the moment everything changed. In 1788, the slave trade flourishing across the British Empire, amassing wealth beyond measure. Bury the Chains is the remarkable story of the men who sought to end slavery and brought the issue to the heart of British political life.Hochschild, lauded for his scholarly prowess and engrossing storytelling, transports us from London's bustling coffee houses to the West Indies' backbreaking sugar plantations. Exploring the roles of key figures in the movement such as John Newton, Thomas Clarkson, William Wilberforce, Granville Sharp, and former slave Olaudah Equiano, it tells the history of the battle against an era of abhorrent human exploitation, illuminating the inception of the international human rig

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Book SynopsisThe transatlantic slave trade is too often reduced to a single module in a history course or chapter in a book. But - from the maps we use to the clothes we wear and the science that explains our world - its influence is everywhere. From the creators of the hit podcast, Human Resources explores how the slave trade transformed Britain, through places, objects, institutions, commodities and activities we encounter every day without ever pausing to think about their origins. Taking us into art galleries and sports events, offices and financial institutions, and even our own kitchen cupboards, it reveals the British Empire's true legacy, and how the past connects to the present in shocking and extraordinary ways.

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Book SynopsisAn explosive new history about the whole canvas of slavery in Africa, including enslavement within the continent.

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Book SynopsisThis is the forgotten story of the million white Europeans, snatched from their homes and taken in chains to the great slave markets of North Africa to be sold to the highest bidder. Ignored by their own governments, and forced to endure the harshest of conditions, very few lived to tell the tale.Using the firsthand testimony of a Cornish cabin boy named Thomas Pellow, Giles Milton vividly reconstructs a disturbing, little known chapter of history. Pellow was bought by the tyrannical sultan of Morocco who was constructing an imperial pleasure palace of enormous scale and grandeur, built entirely by Christian slave labour. As his personal slave, he would witness first-hand the barbaric splendour of the imperial court, as well as experience the daily terror of a cruel regime.Gripping, immaculately researched, and brilliantly realised, WHITE GOLD reveals an explosive chapter of popular history, told with all the pace and verve of one of our finest historians.Trade ReviewGiles Milton has a gift for searching out odd and forgotten corners of history and turning them into bestselling books... this is not a dry history, but a full-blooded narrative closer in style to a historical novel than to an academic study. * William Palmer Literary Review *Milton's story could scarcely be more action-packed, and its setting and subsidiary characters are as fantastic as its events. * The Sunday Times *An extraordinary story which few people will be at all familiar with... an exciting and sensational account of a really swash-buckling historical episode * Philip Hensher, Spectator *Giles Milton's narrative races along as he stitches together a story of heroism, sacrifice and misplaced zeal, painstakingly researched from contemporary writing and records * Observer *Giles Milton... has crafted an inspiration for those of us who believe that history can be exciting and entertaining * The Times *

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Book SynopsisA compelling account of the story of slavery - from ancient times, through the plantations of the Caribbean and America, to the official abolition of the slave trade more than 200 years ago. Recounts the stories of people who were enslaved, including their daring tales of resistance and escape. Highlights the continued existence of slavery today and what you can do to help stop it.

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Book SynopsisAbducted from Africa, sold in America.A deeply affecting record of an extraordinary life- Daily TelegraphA major literary event: a newly published work from the author of the American classic Their Eyes Were Watching God, with a foreword from Pulitzer Prize-winning author Alice Walker.The true story of one of the last-known survivors of the Atlantic slave trade.In August 1931, famed anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston travelled to Alabama to visit ninety-year-old Cudjo Lewis, a former slave.Over three months, Cudjo shared heart-rending memories of his childhood in Africa; the horrors of being captured fifty years after slavery was outlawed and held in the Ouidah barracoons for selection by American slavers; the harrowing ordeal of the Middle Passage aboard the Clotilda with over one hundred other souls; and the years he spent in slavery.Barracoon brings to life Cudjo's singular voice in an invaluable contribution to history and culture, a work as poignant as it is profound.Trade Review“That Zora Neale Hurston should find and befriend Cudjo Lewis, the last living man with firsthand memory of capture in Africa and captivity in Alabama, is nothing shy of a miracle. Barracoon is a testament to the enormous losses millions of men, women and children endured in both slavery and freedom—a story of urgent relevance to every American, everywhere.” Tracy K. Smith, Pulitzer Prize winning author of Life on Mars and Wade in the Water “Zora Neale Hurston’s genius has once again produced a Maestrapiece.” Alice Walker, Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Color Purple “Barracoon is a powerful, breathtakingly beautiful, and at times, heart wrenching, account of one man’s story, eloquently told in his own language. Zora Neale Hurston gives Kossola control of his narrative— a gift of freedom and humanity. It completely reinforces for me the fact that Zora Neale Hurston was both a cultural anthropologist and a truly gifted, and compassionate storyteller, who sat in the sometimes painful silence with Kossola and the depth and breadth of memory as a slave. Such is a narrative filled with emotions and histories bursting at the intricately woven seams.” Nicole Dennis-Benn, author of Here Comes the Sun “A searing reminder of how recently American slavery ended, and the depth of the pain it caused.” The Economist “A deeply affecting record of an extraordinary life.” Daily Telegraph “Barracoon and its long path to print is a testament to Zora’s singular vision amid so many competing pressures that continue to put us at war with ourselves.” Huffington Post Books of the Year – The Economist Best Books of 2018 – New York Public Library Best Books of 2018 – NPR Best Books of 2018 – SELF.com Best Non-Fiction Books of 2018 – TIME

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Book SynopsisThe definitive modern biography of the great slave leader, military genius and revolutionary hero Toussaint LouvertureThe Haitian Revolution began in the French Caribbean colony of Saint-Domingue with a slave revolt in August 1791, and culminated a dozen years later in the proclamation of the world''s first independent black state. After the abolition of slavery in 1793, Toussaint Louverture, himself a former slave, became the leader of the colony''s black population, the commander of its republican army and eventually its governor. During the course of his extraordinary life he confronted some of the dominant forces of his age - slavery, settler colonialism, imperialism and racial hierarchy. Treacherously seized by Napoleon''s invading army in 1802, this charismatic figure ended his days, in Wordsworth''s phrase, ''the most unhappy man of men'', imprisoned in a fortress in France.Black Spartacus draws on a wealth of archival material, much of it overlooked by previous biographers, to follow every step of Louverture''s singular journey, from his triumphs against French, Spanish and British troops to his skilful regional diplomacy, his Machiavellian dealings with successive French colonial administrators and his bold promulgation of an autonomous Constitution. Sudhir Hazareesingh shows that Louverture developed his unique vision and leadership not solely in response to imported Enlightenment ideals and revolutionary events in Europe and the Americas, but through a hybrid heritage of fraternal slave organisations, Caribbean mysticism and African political traditions. Above all, Hazareesingh retrieves Louverture''s rousing voice and force of personality, making this the most engaging, as well as the most complete, biography to date.After his death in the French fortress, Louverture became a figure of legend, a beacon for slaves across the Atlantic and for generations of European republicans and progressive figures in the Americas. He inspired the anti-slavery campaigner Frederick Douglass, the most eminent nineteenth-century African-American; his emancipatory struggle was hailed by those who defied imperial and colonial rule well into the twentieth. In the modern era, his life informed the French poet Aimé Césaire''s seminal idea of négritude and has been celebrated in a remarkable range of plays, songs, novels and statues. Here, in all its drama, is the epic story of the world''s first black superhero.Trade ReviewThe art of biography lies in using a life story to bring a historical moment, as well as the society and culture that shaped it, alive and to make it legible. And in this, Hazareesingh succeeds admirably ... beautifully written and deeply engag­ing, connecting the many remarkable writings by and about Louverture in a symphonic narrative -- Laurent Dubois * American Historical Review *This is an erudite and elegant biography with a message that resonates strongly in our own time -- David Cannadineremarkable ... the sharpest portrait yet of Louverture ... Black Spartacus is a triumph. It takes a nearly impossibly complex history and weaves it into a compelling and accurate narrative that reads like fiction. -- Ben Horowitz * Financial Times *Black Spartacus is a tour de force: by far the most complete, authoritative and persuasive biography of Toussaint that we are likely to have for a long time...an extraordinarily gripping read. -- David A Bell * Guardian *There is no better literary contribution to the year of Black Lives Matter than Sudhir Hazareesingh's Black Spartacus, an authoritative biography of Toussaint Louverture, who led the successful "slave revolt" in Haiti and paved the way for Haitian independence. -- Vince Cable * New Statesman Books of the Year *an outstanding biography that breaks fresh ground and scrapes the crust of folklore, and cliché, from the Toussaint story ... scrupulous and absorbing ... After the summer of 2020, there could hardly be a more urgent and valuable book. -- Boyd Tonkin * Arts Desk *This thrilling, magisterial, superb biography, full of new material, tells the extraordinary swashbuckling, bloodspattered, inspirational life of Toussaint, brilliant leader of the Haitian slave revolt against France -- Simon Sebag Montefiore * Evening Standard *Lustrous pearls ... scattered throughout Black Spartacus, turn this detailed, blow-by-blow account of Toussaint's military exploits into a dazzling, complicated narrative ... a breath-taking picture of the decade of Toussaint's dream -- Amy Wilentz * Spectator *Sudhir Hazareesingh's engrossing new life is the story of an island as well as a man ... Hazareesingh brings to the task a voracious appetite for original sources and a discerning ear for those that have the ring of truth. He also has a gift for tracing those threads that reveal a previously unrecognised pattern in the fabric of a life. -- Nathan Perl-Rosenthal * Wall Street Journal *With Black Spartacus, Sudhir Hazareesingh has produced the fourth - and best - biography of Toussaint Louverture since the bicentenary of Haitian independence ... The book deftly tackles the early stages of the slave uprising and gives one of the most convincing accounts yet of Toussaint's likely role in its opening moves. -- Paul Clammer * History Today *This superb new history of Louverture and his legacy portrays Saint-Domingue as the most profitable slave colony the world had ever known ... with rare narrative verve, Hazareesingh conjures his subject's extraordinary life. -- Ian Thomson * The Observer *This is a balanced, yet sympathetic, biography which throws light on Toussaint's personality and acknowledges the importance of his political ideals ... Toussaint is now a global figure, a byword for Black empowerment, and as such he has become a hero for our times. -- Alan Forrest * Times Literary Supplement *Hazareesingh presents a deeply researched, energetic, and comprehensively reenvisioned study of the extraordinary life and still-growing influence of Haiti's liberator and founding father. -- Donna Seaman * Booklist *a timely study of Toussaint Louverture, hero of Haiti's slave revolt -- Clive Davis * The Times *This timely biography digs deeper into archival material to reveal Louverture's uniquely modern views. * Evening Standard *engaging ... a vivid portrait of a complex, captivating and sometimes contradictory leader. -- Carrie Gibson * Prospect *Based on meticulous research in the French archives, Hazareesingh's scholarship deserves the highest praise. -- Dominic Sandbrook * Sunday Times *Sudhir Hazareesingh's remarkable book is a sparkling example of the role history can play in society today and, in particular, the importance of shining a light on the often-overlooked experiences of the past. -- Paul RamsbottomSudhir Hazareesingh's account of what he dubs the "epic life" of Toussaint Louverture provides a meticulous biography of his subject and, at the same time, a comprehensive new introduction to the Haitian Revolution ... Black Spartacus is compellingly written and presents its rich source material, both historiographic and archival, with a welcome lightness of touch. ... the definitive English-language life of Louverture -- Charles Forsdick * Jacobin *Sudhir Hazareesingh's stellar, deeply engrossing Black Spartacus still thrums with great potential for our contemporary moment. [Toussaint] shines incandescent in Hazareesingh's tour de force, which has brought an immense amount of new material into the general public domain. The distinguished author, who is a fellow at Oxford's Balliol College, previously specialized in French intellectual and cultural history, and admits in his acknowledgements that he had "never ventured into the history of French colonialism in the Caribbean." But there's also an intriguing biographical element- his roots in the Indian ocean island of Mauritius - that has worked rather serendipitously. As far as this reader is concerned, it's that perspective which has wound up yielding the most original and penetrating insights in Black Spartacus. -- Vivek Menezes * Hindustan Times *This book weaves all these threads into a compelling narrative. Reality trumps fiction on every page. -- Francis Ghiles * ES Global *

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Book SynopsisLONGLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER ~ NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ~ WINNER OF THE CUNDILL HISTORY PRIZE 'An astonishing account of love, resilience and survival' Sunday Times 'A remarkable book' New York Times 'An extraordinary tale through the generations' Guardian In 1850s South Carolina, Rose, an enslaved woman, faced a crisis: the imminent sale of her daughter Ashley. Thinking quickly, she packed a cotton bag with a few items. Soon after, the nine-year-old girl was separated from her mother and sold. Decades later, Ashley's granddaughter Ruth embroidered this family history on the sack in spare, haunting language. That, in itself, is a story. But it's not the whole story. How does one uncover the lives of people who, in their day, were considered property? Harvard historian Tiya Miles carefully traces these women's faint presence in archival records, and, where archives fall short, she turns to objects, art, and the environment to write a singular history of the experience of slavery, and the uncertain freedom afterward. All That She Carried gives us history as it was lived, a poignant story of resilience and love passed down against steep odds.Trade ReviewAll That She Carried stands as an astonishing account of love, resilience and survival, one that helps to plug that archival abyss * Sunday Times *All That She Carried finds a way to give voice to the wordless by using a mundane, domestic object - a cloth sack and its contents - to thread an extraordinary tale through the generations * Guardian *A remarkable book -- Jennifer Szalai * The New York Times *Deeply layered and insightful ... [a] bold reflection on American history, African American resilience, and the human capacity for love and perseverance * Washington Post *Through [Miles's] interpretation, the humble things in the sack take on ever-greater meaning, its very survival seems magical, and Rose's gift starts to feel momentous in scale -- Rebecca Onion * Slate *Deeply and lovingly researched ... a testament to the power of story, witness, and unyielding love * Atlanta Journal-Constitution *Tiya Miles is a gentle genius . . . All That She Carried is a gorgeous book and a model for how to read as well as feel the precious artifacts of Black women's lives -- Imani Perry, author of South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a NationA brilliant exercise in historical excavation and recovery ... With creativity, determination, and great insight, Miles illuminates the lives of women who suffered much, but never forgot the importance of love and family -- Annette Gordon-Reed, author of The Hemingses of MonticelloA history told with brilliance and tenderness and fearlessness -- Jill Lepore, author of These Truths: A History of the United StatesAll That She Carried is a moving literary and visual experience about love between a mother and daughter and about many women descendants down through the years. Above all it is Miles's lyrical story, written in her signature penetrating prose, about the power of objects and memory, as well as human endurance, in the history of slavery. The book is nothing short of a revelation -- David W. Blight, author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom[A] powerful history of women and slavery * The New Yorker *[A] brilliant and compassionate account * Kirkus Reviews (starred review) *[A] sparkling tale * Oprah Daily *[An] extraordinary story ... unique and unforgettable * Ms. Magazine *This absorbing, heartfelt and beautifully written book traces the story of one family through a simple cotton sack to reveal the determination of one woman, sold into slavery, to protect the next generations from harm. In researching Rose's life, Tiya Miles uncovers the - too often unheard - voices of Black female slaves; and tells of their appalling suffering and remarkable stoicism. -- Clare Hunter, Sunday Times-bestselling author of Threads of Life: A History of the World Through the Eye of a Needle and Embroidering Her TruthIt is such a small sack, made of such very rough material. Yet as Tiya Miles shows, this textile given by a mother to her child at a time of greatest peril not only holds within it the whole unforgivable history of Transatlantic slavery, it also contains the greatest thing that anything can contain: love -- Victoria Finlay, author of Fabric: The Hidden History of the Material WorldTiya Miles has crafted a powerful, poignant narrative through a single, wondrous, ordinary object. The bag that Ashley carried stands for hope in the bleakest of times and of love. History writing at its best -- Kate Strasdin, author of The Dress Diary of Mrs Anne Sykes: Secrets from a Victorian Woman's WardrobeAshley's Sack, as it is known, with its short and simple message of intergenerational love, becomes a portal through which Tiya Miles views and reimagines the inner lives of Black women. She excavates the history of Black women who face insurmountable odds and invent a language that can travel across time -- Michael Eric Dyson, author of Long Time Coming: Reckoning with Race in AmericaTiya Miles uses the tools of her trade to tend to Black people, to Black mothers and daughters, to our wounds, to collective Black love and loss. This book demonstrates Miles's signature genius in its rare balance of both rigor and care -- Brittney Cooper, author of Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her SuperpowerAll That She Carried is a masterpiece work of African American women's history that reveals what it takes to survive and even thrive. Read this book and then pass it on to someone you love -- Martha S. Jones, author of Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for AllTiya Miles has written a beautiful book about the tragic materiality of black women's lives across three generations, through slavery and freedom. This book is for anyone interested in learning about black people's centrality to American history -- Stephanie Jones-Rogers, author of They Were Her Property

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Book SynopsisFrederick Douglass's Narrative recounts his life as a slave in Maryland and escape to freedom in 1838. An important slave autobiography, it is significant both for what it tells us about slave life and about its author. It is here reprinted with contexualizing source material and other writings by Douglass, as well as an introduction discussing its literary and historical significance.Trade ReviewA huge amount is packed into a slim volume. If you'd like to know more about Frederick Douglass, this is an excellent place to start. * Vulpes Libris *

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Book SynopsisHarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics.

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Book SynopsisBorn a free man in New York State in 1808, Solomon Northup was kidnapped in Washington, D.C., in 1841. He spent the next twelve years as a slave on a Louisiana cotton plantation. During this time he was frequently abused and often afraid for his life. After regaining his freedom in 1853, Northup published this gripping account of his captivity. As an educated man, Northup was able to present an exceptionally detailed description of slave life and plantation society. Indeed, this book is probably the fullest, most realistic picture of the ''peculiar institution'' during the three decades before the Civil War. Northup tells his story both from the viewpoint of an outsider, who had experienced thirty years of freedom and dignity in the United States before his capture, and as a slave, reduced to total bondage and submission. Very few personal accounts of American slavery were written by slaves with a similar history. This extraordinary slave narrative, new to Penguin Classics, has a new introduction by prize-winning historian and author Ira Berlin, an an essay by Henry Louis Gates Jr.Trade Review“I could not believe that I had never heard of this book. It felt as important as Anne Frank’s Diary, only published nearly a hundred years before. . . . The book blew [my] mind: the epic range, the details, the adventure, the horror, and the humanity. . . . I hope my film can play a part in drawing attention to this important book of courage. Solomon’s bravery and life deserve nothing less.” —Steve McQueen, director of 12 Years a Slave, from the Foreword“Frightening, gripping and inspiring . . . Northup’s story seems almost biblical, structured as it is as a descent and resurrection narrative of a protagonist who, like Christ, was 33 at the time of his abduction. . . . Northup reminds us of the fragile nature of freedom in any human society and the harsh reality that whatever legal boundaries existed between so-called free states and slave states in 1841, no black man, woman or child was permanently safe.” —Henry Louis Gates, Jr., from the Afterword “For sheer drama, few accounts of slavery match Solomon Northup’s tale of abduction from freedom and forcible enslavement.” —Ira Berlin, from the Introduction“If you think the movie offers a terrible-enough portrait of slavery, please, do read the book. . . . The film is stupendous art, but it owes much to a priceless piece of document. Solomon Northup’s memoir is history. . . . His was not simply an extraordinary story, but an account of the life of a great many ordinary people.” —The Daily Beast“An incredible document, amazingly told and structured. Tough, but riveting. The movie of it by Steve McQueen might be the most successful adaptation of a book ever undertaken; text and film complement each other wildly.” —Rachel Kushner, The New York Times Book Review“The best firsthand account of slavery.” —James M. McPherson, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Battle Cry of Freedom, in The New York Times Book Review“Northup published a memoir of his 12-year nightmare in 1853, the year after Uncle Tom’s Cabin came out, and it was so successful that he went on to participate in two stage adaptations. The book dropped from sight in the 20th century, but the movie tie-in will certainly reestablish its virtually unique status as a work by an educated free man who managed to return from slavery.” —The Hollywood Reporter

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Book SynopsisIn retelling the story of the radical Alexander Hamilton, Parenti rewrites the history of early America and the global economy. For much of the twentieth century, Hamilton-sometimes seen as the bad boy of the founding fathers or portrayed as the patron saint of bankers-was out of fashion. In contrast his rival Thomas Jefferson, the patrician democrat and slave owner who feared government overreach, was claimed by all. But more recently, Hamilton has become a subject of serious interest again.He was a contradictory mix: a tough soldier, austere workaholic, exacting bureaucrat, sexual libertine, glory-obsessed romantic with suicidal tendencies-and pioneer of industrialisation. As Parenti argues, we have yet to fully appreciate Hamilton as the primary architect of American capitalism and the developmental state. In exploring his life and work, Parenti rediscovers this gadfly as a pathbreaking political thinker and institution builder. In this vivid portrait, Hamilton emerges as a singularly important historical figure: a thinker and politico who laid the foundation for America's ascent to global supremacy and mass industrialisation-for better or worse.Trade ReviewIn praise of Lockdown America: "In the best tradition of investigative journalism, paced like a fine novel, it carries the authority of meticulous academic research." * Independent *In praise of Lockdown America: "Exhaustively documented ... deserves a full hearing from anyone serious about ending the often horrific realities of the criminal justice system." * Washington Post *In praise of Lockdown America: "Essential reading for those in law enforcement and politics who are attracted by the rhetoric of zero tolerance." * Times Literary Supplement *In praise of Lockdown America: "Terrifying, informative and gripping." * New York Press *

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Book SynopsisThe Woman of Colour is a unique literary account of a black heiress' life immediately after the abolition of the British slave trade. Olivia Fairfield, the biracial heroine and orphaned daughter of a slaveholder, must travel from Jamaica to England, and as a condition of her father's will either marry her Caucasian first cousin or become dependent on his mercenary elder brother and sister-in-law. As Olivia decides between these two conflicting possibilities, her letters recount her impressions of Britain and its inhabitants as only a black woman could record them. She gives scathing descriptions of London, Bristol, and the British, as well as progressive critiques of race, racism, and slavery. The narrative follows her life from the heights of her arranged marriage to its swift descent into annulment and destitution, only to culminate in her resurrection as a self-proclaimed "widow" who flouts the conventional marriage plot.The appendices, which include contemporary reviews of the novel, historical documents on race and inheritance in Jamaica, and examples of other women of colour in early British prose fiction, will further inspire readers to rethink issues of race, gender, class, and empire from an African woman's perspective.Trade Review“This exemplary edition of The Woman of Colour, with its abundant historical context, explores vital interconnections of race, gender, and class. Its rich contribution to the debate about cultural identity and colonial power marks it as a classic.” — Moira Ferguson, University of Missouri Kansas City“Women of colour in eighteenth-century literature have become a ‘spectral presence,’ pushed into the invisibility of darkness, their voices unread or ignored. Now what has been in darkness is restored to light, as Olivia Fairfield can be heard anew. Born in Jamaica into a society in which one of her parents had enslaved the other, she is forced by law and custom to travel to the heart of colonial darkness in England itself. In a manner ‘polite yet aggressive,’ she makes her voice heard.” — Lise Winer, McGill UniversityTable of ContentsAppendix A: Lucy Peacock, “The Creole” (1786)Appendix B: Anonymous poem “written by a Mulatto Woman” (1794)Appendix C: Minor Heiresses of Color in British Long Prose Fiction Agnes Musgrave, Solemn Injunction (1798) Jane Austen, Fragment of a Novel (1817) Edmund Marshall, Edmund and Eleonora (1797) Robert Bissett, Douglas; or, The Highlander (1800) Mrs. Charles Mathews, Memoirs of a Scots Heiress (1791) Appendix D: Historical and Social Accounts of People of Color in Jamaica Bryan Edwards, The History, Civil and Commercial, of the British Colonies in the West Indies (1799) Edward Long, The History of Jamaica (1774) J.B. Moreton, West India Customs and Manners (1793) Appendix E: People of Color in British Epistolary Narratives Richard Griffith, The Gordian Knot (1769) Hester Thrale, “Letter to Mrs. Pennington” (1802) Clara Reeve, Plans of Education (1792) Appendix F: The Woman of Colour: Contemporary Reviews The British Critic (March 1810) The Critical Review (May 1810) The Monthly Review (June 1810) Appendix G: Jamaican Petitions, Votes of the Assembly, and an Englishman’s Will From Votes of the Honourable House of Assembly of Jamaica (1792) From Andrew Wright’ “Last Will and Testament” (1806) Select Bibliography

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Book SynopsisA searing--and sobering--account of the legal and extra-legal means by which systemic white racism has kept Black Americans ''in their place'' from slavery to police and vigilante killings of Black men and women, from 1619 to the present.From the arrival of the first English settlers in America until now-a span of four centuries-a minority of white men have created, managed, and perpetuated their control of every major institution, public and private, in American society. And no group in America has suffered more from the harms imposed by white men''s laws than African Americans, with punishment by law often replaced by extra-legal means. Over the centuries, thousands of victims have been murdered by lynching, white mobs, and appalling massacres.In White Men''s Law, the eminent scholar Peter Irons makes a powerful and persuasive case that African Americans have always been held back by systemic racism in all major institutions that can hold power over them. Based on a wide range of souTrade ReviewThe book Irons' has written is brilliant analysis of just how deep and pervasive our history of racial inequality remains. * William H. Chafe, Journal of Southern History *Table of ContentsPreface: "They've Got Him!" Ch. 1: "Thirty Lashes, Well Laid On" Ch. 2: "Dem Was Hard Times, Sho Nuff" Ch. 3: "Beings of An Inferior Order" Ch. 4: "Fighting For White Supremacy" Ch. 5: "The Foul Odors of Blacks" Ch. 6: "Negroes Plan to Kill All Whites" Ch. 7: "Why Don't Dmocracy Include Me?" Ch 8: "I Thanked God Right Then and There" Ch 9: "War Against the Constitution" Ch 10: "Two Cities-One White, the Other Black" Ch 11: "All Blacks Are Angry" Ch 12: "The Basic Minimal Skills" References

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Book SynopsisAugust 2019 saw numerous commemorations of the year 1619, when what was said to be the first arrival of enslaved Africans occurred in North America. Yet in the 1520s, the Spanish, from their imperial perch in Santo Domingo, had already brought enslaved Africans to what was to become South Carolina. The enslaved people quickly defected to local Indigenous populations, and compelled their captors to flee. Deploying such illuminating research, The Dawning of the Apocalypse is a riveting revision of the “creation myth” of settler colonialism and how the United States was formed. Here, Gerald Horne argues forcefully that, in order to understand the arrival of colonists from the British Isles in the early seventeenth century, one must first understand the “long sixteenth century”—from 1492 until the arrival of settlers in Virginia in 1607. During this prolonged century, Horne contends, “whiteness” morphed into “white supremacy,” and allowed England to co-opt not only religious minorities but also various nationalities throughout Europe, thus forging a muscular bloc that was needed to confront rambunctious Indigenes and Africans. In retelling the bloodthirsty story of the invasion of the Americas, Horne recounts how the fierce resistance by Africans and their Indigenous allies weakened Spain and enabled London to dispatch settlers to Virginia in 1607. These settlers laid the groundwork for the British Empire and what became the United States of America.

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Book SynopsisV. S. Naipaul was born in Trinidad in 1932. He came to England on a scholarship in 1950. He spent four years at University College, Oxford, and began to write, in London, in 1954. He pursued no other profession.His novels include A House for Mr Biswas, The Mimic Men, Guerrillas, A Bend in the River, and The Enigma of Arrival. In 1971 he was awarded the Booker Prize for In a Free State. His works of nonfiction, equally acclaimed, include Among the Believers, Beyond Belief, The Masque of Africa, and a trio of books about India: An Area of Darkness, India: A Wounded Civilization and India: A Million Mutinies Now.In 1990, V. S. Naipaul received a knighthood for services to literature; in 1993, he was the first recipient of the David Cohen British Literature Prize. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2001. He lived with his wife Nadira and cat Augustus in Wiltshire, and died in 20Trade ReviewNaipaul travels with the artist’s eye and ear and his observations are sharply discerning. -- Evelyn WaughBelongs in the same category of travel writing as Lawrence’s books on Italy, Greene’s on West Africa and Pritchett’s on Spain. * New Statesman *Where earlier travellers enthused or recoiled, Mr Naipaul explains. His tone is critical but humane, and he tempers his inevitable indignation with an admirable sense of comedy. * Observer *Dazzling reportorial skills and a sharp historical mind. * New York Times Book Review *

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Book Synopsis''A rich, sprawling epic full of history and magic.'' Alix E. Harrow, Hugo award-winning authorA sweeping tale of revolution and wonder in a world not quite like our own, A Declaration of the Rights of Magicians is a genre-defying story of magic, war, and the struggle for freedom.It is the Age of Enlightenment -- of new and magical political movements, from the necromancer Robespierre calling for revolution in France to the weather mage Toussaint L''Ouverture leading the slaves of Haiti in their fight for freedom, to the bold new Prime Minister William Pitt weighing the legalization of magic amongst commoners in Britain and abolition throughout its colonies overseas. But amidst all of the upheaval of the enlightened world, there is an unknown force inciting all of human civilisation into violent conflict. And it will require the combined efforts of revolutionaries, magicians, and abolitionists to unmask this hidden enemy before the whole Trade ReviewA beautiful tapestry of words, a combination of carefully observed and researched history and a well-thought-out and fascinating system of magic. An absolute delight to read. * Genevieve Cogman, author of THE INVISIBLE LIBRARY *Impressively intricate; fans of the magic-and-history of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell will be delighted. * Alexandra Rowland, author of A CONSPIRACY OF TRUTHS *A rich, sprawling epic full of history and magic. * Alix E. Harrow, Hugo Award-winning author *Puts a human face on the titans of the past, while weaving in supernatural elements that add a whole new dimension. I stayed up well past my bedtime to find out what happens next. * Marie Brennan, author of The Memoirs of Lady Trent series *Many have tried and some have succeeded in writing mashups with famed literary characters, but Parry knocks it out of the park... Just plain wonderful * Kirkus on THE UNLIKELY ESCAPE OF URIAH HEEP *Fun, witty, and full of insights about the powerful effect of stories on our lives, this book is highly recommended. Give it to readers who devoured Jasper Fforde, Jim C. Hines' Libriomancer, and Genevieve Cogman's The Invisible Library, and to readers looking for adventurous fantasy with a soupçon of family drama. * Booklist (starred review) on THE UNLIKELY ESCAPE OF URIAH HEEP *H.G. Parry's ambitious debut novel is a delight of magic and literature, love and adventure. With vibrant characters and a passion for story that shines through every word, this engaging read establishes Parry as a writer to watch. * Kat Howard on THE UNLIKELY ESCAPE OF URIAH HEEP *A delightful blend of adventure and mystery and marvel, a story in which the fantastical becomes real. This beautifully-written novel is an exploration of the power fiction wields -- the power to inform and to change, even to endanger, our everyday world. * Louisa Morgan on THE UNLIKELY ESCAPE OF URIAH HEEP *A daring exploration of the worlds within words. Parry writes with the keen insight of Sherlock Holmes, the generous heart of David Copperfield, and the haunting soul of Dorian Gray. * Jordanna Max Brodsky on THE UNLIKELY ESCAPE OF URIAH HEEP *A joyous adventure through all the tales you've ever loved. Funny, charming, clever and heartfelt, you're absolutely going to adore The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heep. * Tasha Suri on THE UNLIKELY ESCAPE OF URIAH HEEP *H.G. Parry has crafted an imaginative and unique exploration of how words shift our lives in ways big and small. The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heep is a rollicking adventure that thrills like Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere mashed up with Penny Dreadful in the best post-modern way. Equal parts sibling rivalry, crackling mystery, and Dickensian battle royale, it'll be one of your most fun reads this year. * Mike Chen on THE UNLIKELY ESCAPE OF URIAH HEEP *Parry does a lovely dance on and around the stage of Dickens and other classical literature, playing fast and loose with the nature of reality to tell a story about the transformative act of the reading process and the importance of family, both found and not. The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heep is dead clever and enormously satisfying. * Vivian Shaw on THE UNLIKELY ESCAPE OF URIAH HEEP *Clever, emotionally compelling, and teeming with witty allusions. In a story reminiscent of the literary world-bending adventures of Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next, Parry has crafted a tale which will appeal to the cherished dreams-and secret nightmares-of all bibliophiles. * Cass Morris on THE UNLIKELY ESCAPE OF URIAH HEEP *If you've ever checked the backs of your wardrobe for snow and lamp-light -- if you've ever longed to visit Pemberley House or 221B Baker Street, to battle the Jabberwock or wander through a fictional London fog -- this book belongs to you. It's a star-studded literary tour and a tangled mystery and a reflection on reading itself; it's a pure delight. * Alix E. Harrow on THE UNLIKELY ESCAPE OF URIAH HEEP *Engaging and intelligent, The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heep kept me turning the pages to discover familiar characters and surprising twists. * Rowenna Miller on THE UNLIKELY ESCAPE OF URIAH HEEP *

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Book SynopsisLONGLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE'An incredible work of scholarship' Sathnam SangheraThrough the story of his own family's history as slave and plantation owners, Alex Renton looks at how we owe it to the present to understand the legacy of the past. When British Caribbean slavery was abolished across most of the British Empire in 1833, it was not the newly liberated who received compensation, but the tens of thousands of enslavers who were paid millions of pounds in government money. The descendants of some of those slave owners are among the wealthiest and most powerful people in Britain today. Blood Legacy explores what inheritance - political, economic, moral and spiritual - has been passed to the descendants of the slave owners and the descendants of the enslaved. He also asks, crucially, how the former - himself among them - can begin to make reparations for the past.Trade ReviewA courageous, deeply affecting and excoriatingly honest account of his family's role in enslavement -- PHILIPPE SANDS * * Financial Times * *Renton . . . dismantles the myths with the efficiency of someone shelling pistachios for a snack . . . remarkable . . . an incredible work of scholarship -- SATHNAM SANGHERA * * The Times * *An important book . . . one of the strengths of Renton's book is that it takes seriously the issue of class . . . In breaking class ranks, Renton has given voice to a long suppressed truth . . . [an] admirable book * * Observer * *In this unflinching, fascinating and very human account, drawn from his own family papers, Alex Renton takes a crucial first step towards reparation, by acknowledging the cruel reality of his ancestors' callous exploitation of enslaved people's labour from afar; detailing the damage done, and both asking and beginning to answer the question of what can be done to purge these sins and their legacies today -- MIRANDA KAUFMANN, author of Black TudorsBlood Legacy is a moving, timely, well-written and strikingly thoughtful book that makes an important contribution to the growing debate on the horrors that accompanied Britain's empire-building. Alex Renton's forensic and remarkably honest analysis of his own family papers, and the profound darkness they contain, highlights our continuing failure to acknowledge the extreme toxicity of so much of our Imperial history -- WILLIAM DALRYMPLEUtterly gripped - an incredible book. Alex's work is my book in practice -- EMMA DABIRIA deeply moving, brave and powerful book -- ANDREW MARRMoving and deeply researched, Alex Renton's account of his ancestors' slaveholding brings home the everyday brutality of Caribbean slavery and its contribution to the making of Britain both then and since. Blood Legacy sets the ordinariness of slaveholding in the eighteenth-century monied world alongside accounts of the extraordinary lives of those they owned. This is a book that asks white Britons to look hard at our past and its consequences in the present -- PROFESSOR DIANA PATONA fascinating family history of profit and loss made during slavery in the Caribbean. This book is truth not fiction -- PROFESSOR SIR GEOFF PALMERA useful counter to British self-congratulation on the ending of the Atlantic slave trade . . . It must make any reader question much of the received wisdom about the eighteenth-century Enlightenment -- ANDREW MARR * * Sunday Times * *

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Book SynopsisThe Age of Revolution (1776-1848) destroyed the main slave regimes of the Caribbean but a 'Second Slavery' surged in the US South, Cuba and Brazil, powered by demand for plantation produce and a system of financial credit that leveraged the value of the slaves. By 1860, more than 6 million captives of African descent toiled to produce the cotton, sugar and coffee craved by global consumers. This 'Second Slavery' mimicked capitalist disciplines, intensified slavery's racial character and launched half a century of headlong economic growth.On the eve of the American Civil War, the Slave Power seemed invincible. The slaveholding elite entrenched their 'peculiar institution' in the fabric of the Union only to risk everything on secession. Nobody solicited the slaves' wishes until it became clear that, wherever they could, they were deserting the plantations and joining the Union forces.Abolition radicals destroyed the Second Slavery and victory for the North also spelled defeat for slavery in Cuba and Brazil. But in each of these societies racial oppression was to be reconfigured by 'Black Codes', Jim Crow and toxic doctrines of racial destiny.Slavery leaves an indelible mark on many Atlantic nations. The Reckoning charts the historic impact of slavery and anti-slavery, of black and white activists, of fugitive slaves, feminists, writers, clerics and soldiers. Notwithstanding much unfinished business, the anti-slavery struggle retains its capacity to illuminate and inspire.Trade ReviewTremendously impressive, the result of a lifetime of learning. Historical writing at its best -- Marcus Rediker, author of The Slave ShipBy concluding his decades-long project on New World slavery, and by drawing the attention of British readers to an often-neglected aspect of that history, Blackburn has fittingly capped a lifetime of scholarship. -- Michael Taylor * Literary Review *Table of ContentsIntroduction: Why the ‘Second Slavery’? Patterns of the ‘First Slavery’ Slavery’s Survivors: The American South, Brazil, Cuba Distinctiveness of the Second Slavery Industry, Finance and SlaveryFortifications of the Second SlaveryPart One: Westwards Expansion I Pioneers of the Second Slavery Contested Origins of the United States The US Constitution and Slavery An Abolition Moment? The Northwest Ordinance and Militia Act From the Haitian Revolution to the Louisiana Purchase Birth of the White Man’s Republic Indian Removal and the German Coast Revolt The Price of Compromise The Missouri Controversy A Choice for Slavery II The Making of the Hispano-Cuban Elite A Cuban Miracle? Cuba as a ‘Society with Slaves’ The British in Havana The Hispano-Cuban Reconquest of Florida The Great Slave Revolt in St Domingue The Plantation Surge Cuba as a Slave Society The Colonial Pact A Model Colony?III Brazil: Independence, Monarchy, Slavery and CitizenshipPatterns of Race and SlaveryMercantilism’s End and a New Slave Trade BoomStirrings of Independence and Anti-slavery The Last Days of Colonial BrazilAdherence to the Emperor Liberty, Pacification and Terror in Bahia Pedro’s Setbacks and Abdication The Regency and the Slave TradeBrazil and Backwardness Romanticism and ‘Natural History’Power Was EverythingBrazil Ends the Slave TradeIV Life and Toil on the Slave PlantationRacial Capitalism and the Chattel PrincipleA Multitude of Tasks‘Vigilance Without Punishment is an Illusion’The Productivity of Gang LabourThe Slaveholder as Colonist and Potentate Natural Economy and the Reproduction of the Slave PopulationV Slaveholder Capitalism, Credit and Westwards ExpansionSlaveholders and Modernity Dimensions of the Plantation BoomSlavery Away from the PlantationsCredit is King?Mechanization and its LimitsThe Special Case of Sugar ProcessingAccounting for SlaveryPlanters Ride the Business CycleSlave Dealers Become Sugar LordsHow Cotton Paid for EmpirePart Two: Why the Slaveowners Lost VI. War, Peace and Slavery, 1815-60Mechanics of the Congress SystemConservative Reaction and Bourgeois AdvanceThe Vienna Congress and the Slave TradeLatin America, Britain and the Monroe Doctrine A Congress of the Americas?The Fate of CubaBrazil, Britain and the Upshot of 1850 The Diplomacy of Bullies Filibustering in Texas and CubaMutations of the PeaceVII. Anti-Slavery and the Origins of the Civil WarAnti-Slavery and the Northern MilieuThe Appeal and the Liberator The American Anti-Slavery Society‘A Shock as of an Earthquake’: Pro-Slavery OverreachesSplits over Women’s Rights The Whig and Liberty parties The Role of Frederick DouglassPolitical Abolitionism, Free Soil and the Wilmot Proviso Militant Anti-slaveryThe Dynamics of the Sectional ConflictThe Fugitive Slave Law and Underground Railroad Bleeding Kansas The Rise of the Republican PartyThe Slave Power and the Dred Scott Decision John Brown’s BodyThe Last Cords of Union BreakThe Meaning of Secession: A Slaveholders’ RevoltVIII. Emancipation and Reconstruction in North AmericaWar for the UnionNovelty of the US Civil WarLincoln Discovers that Patriotism Is Not EnoughThe Emancipation Proclamation Emancipation from Above and BelowThe Defeat of the ConfederacyPresidential Reconstruction and the Radical ChallengeThe Radical Programme: Confiscation and Black SuffrageThe Rise and Fall of Radical Reconstruction in the SouthThe North and Radical ReconstructionBlacks and Whites in the New South A Second Revolution?IX. The Ending of Slavery in CubaCuba and Isabelline Spain Puerto Rican Comparisons Tepid Abolitionism of the Cuban Middle ClassSpain’s Politics of AttractionCrisis of the Isabelline RegimeAbolitionism and the Priorities of Imperialist DiplomacyThe Moret Law The ‘Lottery of Princes’ The Republic of DukesBourbon Restoration and the Triumph of the RentierThe Pact of ZanjónSlavery Ends at LastThe United States Seizes Control X. Brazil: The Last EmancipationSlavery’s Place in the Imperial Order Repercussions of the Atlantic Slave Trade Ban The War with Paraguay Crabwise Advance of Emancipationism The Rio Branco Law of 1871The Political Economy of FreedomChurch and StateThe Social Profile of Brazilian AbolitionismRepublicanism and PositivismThe Abolitionist Offensive, 1880-4The Final Assault on Slavery Ordered Freedom‘A Tattered and Ridiculous Liberty’Epilogue: Legacies of Slavery and AbolitionAcknowledgements

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Book SynopsisTrade Review“Cinematic and deeply engaging. . . . a tour de force of storytelling.” -- Brent Staples * The New York Times Book Review *"Absorbing and even moving . . . Mr. Blight displays his lifelong interest in Douglass on almost every page, and his own voice is active and eloquent throughout the narrative. It is a book that speaks to our own time as well as Douglass’s. . . . A brilliant book.” -- John Stauffer * The Wall Street Journal *“The first major biography of Douglass in nearly three decades. . . . Blight isn’t looking to overturn our understanding of Douglass, whose courage and achievements were unequivocal, but to complicate it — a measure by which this ambitious and empathetic biography resoundingly succeeds.” -- Jennifer Szalai * The New York Times *“Extraordinary. . . . Blight has certainly written, in the book’s texture and density and narrative flow—one violent and provocative incident arriving right after another—a great American biography." -- Adam Gopnik * The New Yorker *“A consistently engrossing book that is likely to remain the definitive account of Douglass’s life for many years to come.” -- Eric Foner * The Nation *“A stunning achievement. Blight captures an icon in full humanity. From riveting drama in slavery and Civil War, his Douglass rises into clairvoyant genius on the blinkered centrality of race in our struggle for freedom.” -- Taylor Branch, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of America in the King Years“Extraordinary. . . . In Blight’s pages, [Douglass’s] voice again rings out loud and clear, melancholy and triumphant — still prophesying, still agitating, still calling us to action.” -- Adam Goodheart * The Washington Post *“David Blight has written the definitive biography of Frederick Douglass. With extraordinary detail he illuminates the complexities of Douglass’s life and career and paints a powerful portrait of one of the most important American voices of the 19th century. . . . Magisterial.” -- Eddie S. Glaude, Jr. * The Boston Globe *

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Book SynopsisBuild your child's reading confidence at home with books at the right levelAntislavery campaigner, author, diplomat and political statesmen, Frederick Douglass was one of the greatest men of his age. Having been enslaved himself, Frederick fought publicly against slavery and was an inspiration in the fight for social and political change. Written by Amanda Mitchison, find out about this life-long battle to fight for equality.Sapphire/Band 16 books offer longer reads to develop children''s sustained engagement with texts and are more complex syntactically.Text type: A biographyCurriculum links: History, CitizenshipThis book has been quizzed for Accelerated Reader.

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Book SynopsisA haunting, evocative recounting of her life as a slave in North Carolina, and her final escape and emancipation, Jacobs'' narrative, written between 1853 and 1858 and published in 1861, is one of the most important books ever written documenting the traumas and horrors of slavery in the antebellum South.

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Book SynopsisThe Interesting Narrative is a first-hand account of the horrors of slavery, published on the eve of the British abolition debate in 1789. The most important African autobiography of the 18th century, it recounts Equiano's adventures on land and sea. This edition's introduction surveys recent debates about Equiano's birthplace and identity.Trade ReviewThe appetite for Equiano and his memoir shows no signs of abating, as this new edition shows. * James Walvin, The Times *The book adds to the body of knowledge about a great man, Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vassa, The African. Students now have a wider chose of resources as they study his complex but interesting life. * Arthur Torrington, The Equiano Society *This book will change our assumptions about slavery and affect, and also change our sense of what works can be connected to this vast enterprise. It makes for what is sometimes surprising reading, but it also makes so much sense that the century will never again look quite the same as it did before this book. * George E. Haggerty, SEL Studies in English Literature 1500-1900 *This edition of Equiano's The Interesting Narrative, paired with Carey's introduction and explanatory materials, provides a text that is meaningful across educational levels and backgrounds. It should help to ensure that Equiano's text, with its relevance to multiple disciplines and areas of inquiry, does not again disappear from our awareness. * International Journal of African Historical Studies *

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Book SynopsisA concise, reasoned, practical case for why Britain should pay reparations for historic wrongs to present Caribbean inhabitants.Britain owes reparations to the Caribbean. The exploitation of generations of those trafficked from Africa, or born into enslavement, to work the immensely profitable sugars plantations, enriched both British individuals and the British nation. Colonialism, even after emancipation, perpetuated the exploitation. The Caribbean still suffers, and Britain still benefits, from these historic wrongs.There are some fairly standard objections to reparations -- ''slavery ended a long time ago''; ''Britain should be celebrating its role in abolishing slavery''; ''slavery was legal back then and we shouldn''t judge the past by the standards of the present''; ''you shouldn''t visit the sins of the fathers on the sons''; and so on. And there is a sense that the practical problems of who should pay what to whom are immensely difficult.Michael Banner carefully considers and

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Book SynopsisA collection of Sojourner Truth''s iconic words, including her famous speech at the 1851 Women''s Rights Convention in Akron, OhioA former slave and one of the most powerful orators of her time, Sojourner Truth fought for the equal rights of black women throughout her life. This selection of her impassioned speeches is accompanied by the words of other inspiring African-American female campaigners from the nineteenth century.Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves - and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives--and upended them. Now Penguin brings you a new set of the acclaimed Great Ideas, a curated library of selections from the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization and helped make us who we are.

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Book SynopsisA NEW YORK TIMES BOOK OF THE YEARA New York Times bestseller, the incredible true story of a couple that escaped slavery in the South and eventually made their way to the UK, Africa and beyond.The remarkable true story of Ellen and William Craft, who escaped slavery through daring, determination, and disguise, with Ellen passing as a wealthy, disabled White man and William posing as "his" slave.In 1848, a year of international democratic revolt, a young, enslaved couple, Ellen and William Craft, achieved one of the boldest feats of self-emancipation in history. Posing as master and slave, while sustained by their love as husband and wife, they made their escape together across more than 1,000 miles, riding steamboats, carriages, and trains that took them from bondage in Georgia to the free states of the North.Along the way, they dodged slave traders, military officers, and even friends of their enslavers, who might have revealed their true identities. The tale of their adventure soon made them celebrities, and generated headlines around the country. Audiences could not get enough of this charismatic young couple, who travelled the country drawing thunderous applause as they spoke alongside some of the greatest abolitionists of the day.But even then, they were not out of danger. With the passage of an infamous new Fugitive Slave Act in 1850, all Americans became accountable for returning refugees like the Crafts to slavery. Then yet another adventure began, as the Crafts fled to England to embark upon a new life.With three epic journeys compressed into one monumental bid for freedom, Master Slave Husband Wife recounts both a ground-breaking quest for liberty and justice, and an unforgettable love story.Trade Review'Ellen and William Craft loved each other, but also loved freedom, and knew one was impossible without the other ... we readers gasp in amazement and wonder at the tragedy and triumph' -- Marlon James, winner of The Booker Prize'A feat of ... storytelling, sympathy and insight' * The New York Times *'Woo's history draws from a variety of sources, including the Crafts' own account, to reconstruct a 'journey of mutual self-emancipation', while artfully sketching the background of a nation careering toward civil war' * The New Yorker *'Phenomenal' -- Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, author of The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois'A suspenseful, sensitively rendered account . . . Woo tells the story [with] a cinematic eye' -- W. Caleb McDaniel * The New York Times Book Review *'Superbly researched and masterfully written' * Library Journal *'A gripping adventure. . . . suspenseful and wonderfully told' * Kirkus Reviews *'A pathbreaking book ... Riveting' -- Stuart Miller * The Los Angeles Times *'A narrative of such courage and resourcefulness it seems too dashing to be true. But it is... The story is so richly dramatic, and Ms. Woo so skilled at spinning it out, that at times it's a genuine nail-biter' -- Priscilla M. Jensen * The Wall Street Journal *'Master Slave Husband Wife tells one of the most important stories of American slavery and freedom. With prose that is suspenseful, brilliantly detailed, historically precise, and simply gorgeous, Woo depicts the Crafts and their historic role in antebellum America stunningly. This is a story that will stay with you for a lifetime' -- Imani Perry * author of South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation *'Details of the history of 19th-century American slavery and the courage of those who suffered it and the inhuman vileness of those who were responsible for it' -- Patrick Stewart * interviewed in The New York Times *

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Book Synopsis*** Shortlisted for the Orwell Prize*** In 1903 a Brahmin woman sailed from India to Guyana as a 'coolie', the name the British gave to the million indentured labourers they recruited for sugar plantations worldwide after slavery ended. The woman, who claimed no husband, was pregnant and travelling alone. A century later, her great-granddaughter embarks on a journey into the past, hoping to solve a mystery: what made her leave her country? And had she also left behind a man? Gaiutra Bahadur, an American journalist, pursues traces of her great-grandmother over three continents. She also excavates the repressed history of some quarter of a million female coolies. Disparaged as fallen, many were runaways, widows or outcasts, and many migrated alone. Coolie Woman chronicles their epic passage from Calcutta to the Caribbean, from departures akin either to kidnap or escape, through sea voyages rife with sexploitation, to new worlds where women were in short supply. When they exercised the power this gave them, some fell victim to the machete, in brutal attacks, often fatal, by men whom they spurned. Sex with overseers both empowered and imperiled other women, in equal measure.It also precipitated uprisings, as a struggle between Indian men and their women intersected with one between coolies and their overlords.Trade Review'With Coolie Woman, Bahadur lifts the veil of anonymity. She combines her journalistic eye for detail and story-telling gifts with probing questions, relentlessly pursuing leads to create a haunting portrait of the life of a subaltern. 'Can the subaltern speak?' the theorist Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak had asked rhetorically. Yes, she can. Through the story of Sheojari, Bahadur shows how.' * The Independent *'Coolie Woman: The Odyssey of Indenture is a genealogical page-turner interwoven with a compelling, radical history of empire told from the perspective of indentured women. The collective voice of the jehaji behen (ship sisters) has been barely audible across the centuries, until now ... Bahadur grants us rare imaginative access to the odyssey through the experience of women's stories she finds in the archives.' * The Guardian *'Gaiutra Bahadur has produced an intricate, thoroughly researched and beautifully written book that evokes the experience of emigrant Indians and their descendants.' * Times Literary Supplement *'In her remarkable book, Gaiutra Bahadur chronicles the extraordinary but neglected saga of indentured labour that evolved when the British began to replace slavery on their sugar plantations worldwide. But the book is more than this: it is also a highly personal account that traces the history of the author s maternal line to the present day. As Bahadur clambers down the generations, she provides the reader with a meticulous and lushly detailed family memoir. ...This is a fascinating story, which will have resonance for millions of others who are swept up and transformed by history and have to find a new way to create 'home'.' * Literary Review *' …an epic and remarkably revealing account of love, intrigue, betrayal, and murder on the sugar plantations … Bahadur has shed unexpected light on the origins of sexual violence in many a dislocated community.' * The Philadelphia Inquirer *'In this fine book, Gaiutra Bahadur probes the hidden world of these indentured women. … Bahadur' s research (conducted in Guyana, India, and the United Kingdom) is deep and meticulous in both primary and secondary literature, and the story is told with the novelist's practiced eye for the telling detail. Good history here is a good read as well. And along the way, we catch glimpses of the sordid world of servitude and suffering on the colonial plantations in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries across the world.' * The Journal of Asian Studies *'An astonishing document… both a historical rescue mission and a profound meditation on family and womanhood, Bahadur's Coolie Woman spans continents and centuries, the private and national, to bring to light the extraordinary lives of the author's great-grandmother and the other quarter of a million kuli women that came to the New World as indentured laborers. Bahadur's meticulous research and tireless perseverance have restored an important chapter in our histories — outstanding work.' * Junot Diaz, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao and This Is How You Lose Her *'I thought I knew something about slavery and forced labour, having written two books on the subject. And I thought I knew something about immigration to the New World. But Gaiutra Bahadur's book made me realise how the experience of a whole generation of women like her great-grandmother profoundly challenges the various stereotypes we have. This is a highly original combination of careful scholarship and well-told personal journey.' * Adam Hochschild, author of Bury the Chains: the British Struggle to Abolish Slavery *'With the exhilarating meticulousness of a period film, Coolie Woman recreates a vanished world and casts a personal searchlight on the saga of indenture. Gaiutra Bahadur rescues her great-grandmother Sujaria and other 'coolie' women from the archives by means of a narrative that is both scholarly and soulful. In detailing the bitter journeys of her forebears, in making their astonishing experiences real and sympathetic, and in registering the complexities of their lives -- not least the extent to which they made choices where one might have expected helplessness -- Bahadur honours their memories and shows herself their worthy descendant.' * Teju Cole, author of Open City *'Coolie Woman is an important, unmissable account. From colonialism to labour in India, immigrant narratives to the hidden lives of women, Ms Bahadur excavates a rich and unforgettable set of stories that will permanently change our view of the past.' * Business Standard *'At one level this is a family history, as the author…searches for her roots. At a deeper level, it explores the social history of indentured labour and the imperial policies by which it was governed… It is a colourful story, well told.' * Asian Affairs *'…a moving, foundational book, investigating the experience of indentured Indian women in the Caribbean. It is solidly researched and as such it reveals the difficulty of understanding the human lives concealed within documents. Bahadur delicately reconstructs these women's lives, seen only through a glass darkly, piecing them together with respect and even admiration. This is a book that will both be of great use to scholars and a compelling text for non-specialists.' * Women's Review of Books *'Bahadur's passion shines through … Its real success is to balance Bahadur's personal tale of discovery with the broader story of the 250,000 other “coolie women” who fled sometimes tricky personal circumstances in India only to find their new lives were another battle for survival.' * The National *

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Book SynopsisThis autobiographical account by a former slave is one of the few extant narratives written by a woman. Written and published in 1861, it delivers a powerful portrayal of the brutality of slave life. Jacobs speaks frankly of her master''s abuse and her eventual escape, in a tale of dauntless spirit and faith.

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Book SynopsisMy Story: Mary Prince is the incredible true story of the first Blackwoman and former slave to have her life story printed in theUnited Kingdom.

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Book SynopsisSituates famous and lesser-known eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Haitian revolutionaries, pamphleteers, and political thinkers within the global history of ideas, showing how their systems of knowledge and interpretation took centre stage in the Age of Revolutions.Trade Review[A] magisterial recounting of Haiti's intellectual history . . . . The book is the latest in Daut's constellation of works on the Caribbean intellectual tradition, and Daut is herself one of the most dynamic contemporary voices on Haiti."—Laurent Dubois, Los Angeles Review of Books

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Book SynopsisWinner of the Pulitzer Prize for HistoryThe unforgettable saga of one enslaved woman''s fight for justice--and reparations Born into slavery, Henrietta Wood was taken to Cincinnati and legally freed in 1848. In 1853, a Kentucky deputy sheriff named Zebulon Ward colluded with Wood''s employer, abducted her, and sold her back into bondage. She remained enslaved throughout the Civil War, giving birth to a son in Mississippi and never forgetting who had put her in this position. By 1869, Wood had obtained her freedom for a second time and returned to Cincinnati, where she sued Ward for damages in 1870. Astonishingly, after eight years of litigation, Wood won her case: in 1878, a Federal jury awarded her $2,500. The decision stuck on appeal. More important than the amount, though the largest ever awarded by an American court in restitution for slavery, was the fact that any money was awarded at all. By the time the case was decided, Ward had become a wealthy businessman and a pioneer of convict leasing in the South. Wood''s son later became a prominent Chicago lawyer, and she went on to live until 1912. McDaniel''s book is an epic tale of a black woman who survived slavery twice and who achieved more than merely a moral victory over one of her oppressors. Above all, Sweet Taste of Liberty is a portrait of an extraordinary individual as well as a searing reminder of the lessons of her story, which establish beyond question the connections between slavery and the prison system that rose in its place.Trade ReviewThe reader not only follows the fascinating narrative of a woman who lost her freedom, but also learns of the intricacies of slavery in a border state like Kentucky, the pain of separation from loved ones, and the ordeals of being sold "down the river," surviving on a large cotton plantation, and being an enslaved refugee in Texas during the Civil War... It is an enlightening account from the point of view of an enslaved woman about the arduous trip — and the subsequent years — that many enslaved people were forced to endure by their masters to avoid their being liberated by Union armies... [McDaniel] has turned these into a captivating account of this period, revealing how the legal and economic aspects of the institution of slavery interacted in very personal and human ways with those who were kept enslaved. * Angela Boswell, Professor of History at Henderson State University, Southwestern Historical Quarterly *As a whole, Sweet Taste of Liberty is the fruit of excellent scholarship and a timely and significant addition to the field of U.S. racial history. * Ken Chujo, J.F. Oberlin University, Tokyo, The Journal of Southern History *In this gripping study, Rice University historian McDaniel recounts the painful but triumphant story of one enslaved woman's long fight for justice... McDaniel tells this story engrossingly and accessibly. This is a valuable contribution to Reconstruction history with clear relevance to current debates about reparations for slavery. * Publishers Weekly *Sweet Taste of Liberty is a masterpiece. Using an extraordinary archival discovery, McDaniel expertly weaves a compelling, fine-grained narrative of the extraordinary life of Henrietta Wood. . . . But this is not simply a biography. It also a work of profound analysis, layered with McDaniel's deep knowledge of slavery, emancipation, and the law. The book raises the most profound questions about slavery, reparations, and the debt that the United States owes to the people whose unfree labor constructed a great deal of that nation. * Gregory P. Downs, author of The Second American Revolution: The Civil War-Era Struggle over Cuba and the Rebirth of the American Republic *As America grapples with reparations for slavery, Caleb McDaniel unearths the astounding story of a woman who survived bondage, twice, and fought for restitution against impossible odds. In lucid and vivid prose, he brings us a chilling, inspiring, and timely examination of both the necessity and complexity of redressing historical crimes. * Tony Horwitz, author of Confederates in the Attic and Spying on the South *Henrietta Wood's quest to be made whole by seeking reparations from the man who kidnapped and re-enslaved her is a heart-tugging page-turner. With fidelity to the historical record and insight into the emotions that run through it, Caleb McDaniel's Sweet Taste of Liberty tells how enslaved women lived along the jagged lines that divided house and field, city and countryside, North and South, and slavery and freedom. Her triumph is a tribute to one woman's persistence, courage, legal savvy, and an enduring devotion to family-its lessons for us are timeless. * Martha S. Jones, Society of Black Alumni Presidential Professor, Johns Hopkins University, author of Birthright Citizens: A History of Race and Rights in Antebellum America *McDaniel renders an enthralling biography of a determined, resilient woman... A well-researched, well-told story that also contributes to the debate about reparations." * Library Journal *Sweet Taste of Liberty is a profound book that could not have been released at a better time... It is an account brimming with as much bittersweetness as it does hope." * ZORA *[A] superbly written chronicle . . . . rich with vivid personalities and unexpected turns." * Wall Street Journal *Through painstaking archival research, Bell and McDaniel have reconstructed their lives with such vivid detail, sensitivity, and riveting storytelling that you would think each of their figures left us whole autobiographies. For the simple act of recovering their stories, both books would be commendable. But what makes them essential reading is the larger questions they demand of us as readers: What exactly was the condition under which un-enslaved black people lived before emancipation * and what is it that they and their descendants are owed?The New Republic *W. Caleb McDaniel tells a breathless tale with an ominously dark feel through many of its pages, because the monsters here were real. Yes, it's a complicated tale that races from north to south, but the righteous audacity that ultimately occurred in Ohio in 1870 makes it worthwhile, fist-pumping, and satisfying. Historians, of course, will want Sweet Taste of Liberty. Feminists shouldn't miss it. Folks with an opinion on reparations should find it. All of you will want to take it home. * Miami Times *A deeply rich story... This beautifully written book is a must read. * Civil War Monitor *Sweet Taste of Liberty uses the past to show how the open wounds of slavery still exist. * The Advocate *Researchers, leisurely readers and those in the general public looking to be more informed about the history of slavery and reparations in this country, would be hard-pressed not to find this book compelling. It is a story that deserves to be heard and a conversation that needs to be had. * Bowling Green Daily News *A book that single-handedly proves that new American heroes can be found in the obscured corners of this country's history. * Bowery Boys, American History Book of the Year 2020 *Table of ContentsPrologue Part I - The Worst Slave of Them All Chapter 1: The Crossing Chapter 2: Touseytown Chapter 3: Down River Chapter 4: Ward's Return Chapter 5: Cincinnati Chapter 6: The Plan Chapter 7: The Flight Part II - Forks of the Road Chapter 8: Raising a Muss Chapter 9: Wood versus Ward Chapter 10: The Keeper Chapter 11: Natchez Chapter 12: Brandon Hall Chapter 13: Versailles Chapter 14: Revolution Chapter 15: The March Part III - The Return of Henrietta Wood Chapter 16: Arthur Chapter 17: Robertson County Chapter 18: Dawn and Doom Chapter 19: Nashville Chapter 20: A Rather Interesting Case Chapter 21: Story of a Slave Chapter 22: The Verdict Epilogue Acknowledgements Appendix: An Essay on Sources Notes Index

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