Greatest Emancipations: How the West Abolished Slavery

Book Forum
September 22, 2008 12:00PM
Featuring the author, Jim Powell Senior Fellow, Cato Institute, and author of The Triumph of Liberty, FDR’s Folly, Wilson’s War, and Bully Boy
For thousands of years, slavery went unchallenged in principle. Then in a single century, slavery was abolished and more than seven million slaves were freed throughout the Western hemisphere. The scope and speed of this transformation make it one of the most amazing feats in modern history. Greatest Emancipations tells this fascinating story, focusing on abolitionists in areas where slavery was most entrenched: Haiti, the British Caribbean, the United States, Cuba, and Brazil. In this lively book, Jim Powell concisely illuminates the beginnings of the abolitionist movement, then proceeds through the processes, the battles, the final victory of emancipation, and the incredible impact of its aftermath. Ultimately, Powell argues, the more violence was involved in the emancipation process, the worse the outcomes were, making a provocative case for peaceful antislavery struggles.