Author:Nigel Tattersfield,John Fowles
`I pray people will read this richly detailed and absorbing book, with its vivid renaissance of a matter most of us English seem to have wished into oblivion. ' John Fowles Meticulously kept by Walter Prideaux, the log of the Daniel and Henry provides an astonishing record of a trading venture in the year 1700. Two years earlier, the Guinea trade had been prised loose by an Act of Parliament from the monopoly of the Royal African Company, and respectable burghers in a dozen small provincial ports seized what they saw as an opportunity for quick rewards from the slave trade. Few of these merchants knew anything of trading in Africa, nor of the unscrupulous tribalchiefs who readily offered men, women and children in hard bargaining for beads, alcohol, weapons and gunpowder. In the second part of this book, Tattersfield went in search of long-forgotten documents to chart how small provincial ports fared both economically and morally in the early years of slave trading.
A great amount of detail,...the material is still fascinating and shows how easily men can numb their consciences when profit calls.
—— Irish TimesLarge, ambitious and often enthralling, it is a successful attempt to look at the unfolding of worlds history from an entirely new perspective...The joy and originality of this book is that Ponting offers us very little that is unfamiliar.
—— Literary ReviewFew single-volume efforts have covered so much ground in terms of sheer time-scale and territory, and the general reader will find plenty of useful reference material...Ponting is at his best on technology and the economy, and his description of Europe's waning influence since the 1940s makes perfect sense.
—— SpectatorThis is a history book with a difference. It is imaginative in its approach, courageous in its execution and expansive in its sweep of interest...His approach is radical and interesting...It is a fine example of how a radically new point of departure can cast light on a range of areas over which the specialists will continue to do battle long into the future.
—— Sunday Business PostA meticulously researched work of scholarship, but is also a delightfully personal account of Dalby's year among the geisha. Geisha remains [Dalby's] best-known work and is the bible of geisha studies to this day
—— Times Literary SupplementPopular history in the best sense...its attention to human detail and its commanding prose call to mind the best work of Barbara Tuchman
—— Washington Post