- Published: 15 February 2008
- ISBN: 9780712667630
- Imprint: Vintage
- Format: Paperback
- Pages: 336
- RRP: $32.99
The Trader, The Owner, The Slave
Parallel Lives in the Age of Slavery
- Published: 15 February 2008
- ISBN: 9780712667630
- Imprint: Vintage
- Format: Paperback
- Pages: 336
- RRP: $32.99
Much more than just a catalogue of horrors... James Walvin is extraordinarily alert to the contradictions within the human heart... Walvin is never blind to the horrors of slavery, nor to the responsibility of individuals for their actions. But he recognises that the world was different then and that the institution of slavery encouraged individual acts of evil that would otherwise never have occurred
Craig Brown, Mail on Sunday
Taken together, their stories provide a remarkably intimate insider's perspective on the slave trade, and give us some sense of its staggering human cost
Michael Kerrigan, Scotsman
Cleary written and well-researched
Paul Callan, Daily Express
How did Britain, the 'slave trading poacher' of the 18th century, transform herself into the 'abolitionist game-keeper' of the 19th century?... James Walvin, a renowned historian of black people in Britain, finds answers to this mystery in the lives of three men who contributed, sometimes unwittingly, to the demise of a seemingly unassailable evil
Esther Godfrey, Daily Telegraph
James Walvin here addresses the enormity of the slave trade by looking in depth at three individuals inextricably bound up in it
London Review of Books
A remarkable and gripping story, asking profound questions
Independent
James Walvin provides engrossing portraits of three individuals at the centre of the slave trade
Financial Times
A remarkable and gripping story
Independent
Deftly crafted... The power of Walvin's stories lies in their details
Sunday Times