'One of the most important and timely books I've had the privilege to read' Corinne Fowler
author of Green Unpleasant LandA revelatory historical indictment of the long afterlife of
slavery in the Atlantic worldTo 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 the enslaved a vast debt that was only paid off in 2015 and the
crucial role of Black abolitionists and rebellions in bringing an end to slavery has been
overlooked. In Jamaica Black people were liberated only to enter into an apprenticeship period
harsher than slavery itself. In the American South the formerly enslaved were 'freed' into a
system of white supremacy and racial terror. Across Africa emancipation served as an alibi for
colonization. None of these emancipations involved atonement by the enslavers and their
governments for wrongs committed or reparative justice for the formerly enslaved-an omission
that grassroots Black organizers and activists are rightly seeking to address today.Black Ghost
of Empire will rewire readers' understanding of the world in which we live. Paradigm-shifting
lucid and courageous this book shines a light into the enigma of slavery's supposed death and
its afterlives.
