Specters of the Atlantic: Finance Capital, Slavery, and the Philosophy of History

by Ian Baucom

Book Overview

In September 1781, the captain of the British slave ship Zong ordered 133 slaves thrown overboard, enabling the ship's owners to file an insurance claim for their lost "cargo." Accounts of this horrific event quickly became a staple of abolitionist discourse on both sides of the Atlantic. Ian Baucom revisits, in unprecedented detail, the Zong atrocity, the ensuing court cases, reactions to the event and trials, and the business and social...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0822335964
• ISBN13: 9780822335962
• Release Date: December 2005
• Publisher: Duke University Press
• Length: 400 Pages
• Weight: 1.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.8" x 9.2"