Although he put an immense personal effort in the cause of abolishing the British triangle
trade Thomas Clarkson tends to be overshadowed by his better known fellow-abolitionist William
Wilberforce. Unjustly so - while Wilberforce acted as the abolitionist movements spokesperson
in parliament Clarkson travelled enormous distances through all of England in search of public
support for the abolitionist movement. His various essays and pamphlets made Clarkson the
ideological mastermind of the British antislavery movement.Until the present day Both Clarkson
and Wilberforce rank among the saints of antislavery hagiography. Many scholars however have
set out to discuss British antislavery in a critical way. This book examines in depth three of
Clarksons essays (An Essay on the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species - 1786 An Essay on
the Impolicy of the African Slave Trade - 1788 Thoughts on the Necessity of Improving the
Condition of the Slaves in the British Colonies - 1823) and shows changes in style and ideas.
Helmut Meier tries to exemplify the links of abolitionist discourse and ideology to such
phenomena as the rising of a new capitalist order in the late 18th and early 19th century the
Industrial Revolution the emerging Imperialism of the period and the connected proliferation
of abolitionist ideas around the world.
