Black Ghost of Empire: The Long Death of Slavery and the Failure of Emancipation

'One of the most important and timely books I've had the privilege to read' Corinne Fowler, author of Green Unpleasant Land

A revelatory historical indictment of the long afterlife of slavery in the Atlantic world
To fully understand why the shadow of slavery haunts us today, we must confront the flawed way that it ended. We celebrate abolition - in Haiti after the revolution, in the British Empire in 1833, in the United States during the Civil War. Yet in Black Ghost of Empire, acclaimed historian Kris Manjapra argues that during each of these supposed emancipations, Black people were dispossessed by the moves that were meant to free them. Emancipation, in other words, simply codified the existing racial caste system - rather than obliterating it.
Ranging across the Americas, Europe and Africa, Manjapra unearths disturbing truths about the Age of Emancipations, 1780-1880. In Britain, reparations were given to wealthy slaveowners, not...