August 2023 marks the bicentenary of one of the most important revolts by enslaved people in the history of the British Empire, taking place in what was then Demerara (later part of British Guiana, now Guyana) on the Caribbean coast… Continue Reading
A review of The Wrath to Come—Gone with the Wind and the Lies America Tells, Sarah Churchwell (Head of Bloomsbury, 2023), £10.99 Sarah Churchwell’s new book could hardly be timelier. According to a recent YouGov and Economist poll, “More than… Continue Reading
Penguin’s 2022 republication of the seminal and path-breaking 1944 study Capitalism and Slavery in its “modern classics” series is hugely welcome. The reprint of the book, written by black Trinidadian historian and politician Eric Williams, comes in the aftermath of… Continue Reading
Aimé Césaire, the late, great Martinican poet and activist, once noted that it was in Haiti that the “colonial problem” was first posed in all its complexity.1 In 1492 the tropical Caribbean island was “discovered” for the Spanish Empire by… Continue Reading