Saul David
Cry Freedom
Bury the Chains: The British Struggle to Abolish Slavery
By Adam Hochschild
Macmillan 431pp £20
Human Cargo: A Journey Among Refugees
By Caroline Moorehead
Chatto & Windus 302pp £12.99
On 22 May 1787 twelve men – nine Quakers and three Anglicans – met at a central London printing shop to form a committee whose sole aim was the abolition of the British slave trade. Within twenty years, despite the opposition of the powerful West Indian lobby, they had achieved their objective. In 1834 the existing slaves of the British Empire were emancipated. It is an extraordinary tale, and Adam Hochschild, prize-winning author of King Leopold’s Ghost, does it full justice.
The vested interests the abolition committee had to overcome when it began its work were formidable. Three-quarters of the world’s population was then in bondage ‘of one form or another’: as slaves, serfs, or indentured labourers. British ships dominated the slave ‘triangle’, collecting slaves in West Africa, selling them to
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
‘I have to change’, Miles Davis once said. ‘It’s like a curse.’
@rwilliams1947 tells the story of how Davis made jazz cool.
Richard Williams - In Their Own Sweet Way
Richard Williams: In Their Own Sweet Way - 3 Shades of Blue: Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bill Evans and the Lo...
literaryreview.co.uk
The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act by Fredric Jameson - review by Terry Eagleton via @Lit_Review
for the new(ish) April issue of @Lit_Review I commissioned a number of pieces, including Deborah Levy on Bowie, Rosa Lyster on creative non-fiction, @JonSavage1966 on Pulp, @mjohnharrison on Oyamada, @rwilliams1947 on Kind of Blue, @chris_power on HGarner