Product Description

The terrible story of African slavery in the British colonies of the West Indies and North America is told with clarity and compassion in this classic history.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #293541 in Books
• Published on: 2001-11-05
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 344 pages

From the Back Cover
The brutal story of African slavery in the British colonies of the West Indies and North America is told with clarity and compassion in this classic history. James Walvin explores the experiences which bound together slaves from diverse African backgrounds and explains how slavery transformed the tastes and economy of the Western world.

Although written for readers with no prior knowledge of the subject, Walvins′s account is based on detailed scholarship, drawing on a body of work from the USA, the West Indies and Britain. All aspects of African slavery up to 1776 are covered; the situation of women, flight and rebellion, disease and death, the conditions on the slave ships, the abolition campaign and much more. The narrative is enlivened and personalised by frequent reference to individual lives.

For this revised edition, the author has incorporated recent scholarly findings and updated the notes and bibliography in order to keep the book current.

About the Author
James Walvin is Professor of History at the University of York. He has written widely on slave history and British social history and his recent publications include Questioning Slavery (1996), Making the Black Atlantic (2000), The Slave Trade (1999) and Britains′s Slave Empire (2000).

Customer Reviews

An exceptional historical narrative
Using an academic (yet accessible) narrative, Walvin successfully educates the reader about the unspeakable horrors of British slavery. The physical and mental colinisation of the African slaves is brilliantly descirbed, as well as the barbaric conditions that made slavery one of history's most durable institutions. This book should be read by anyone who wishes to unravel the historical fabric of black/white race relations in the western world.

all this for a smoke and a cup of tea?
Walvin's conclusion that the slave trade was largely driven by British appetite for tobacco and sugar sounds ludicrous and plausible at the same time. To think that the cravings for sweetness could keep the barbarity of the slave trade going over more than two centuries somehow leave a bitter taste in my modern European mouth--good.