Thank you to NetGalley and Random House UK, Vintage for an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

My only regret with this book is not picking it up sooner. This is by far one of the best non-fiction books I've ever had the honour of reading. This book is so incredibly detailed and in-depth concerning the slave trade, focused primarily on the United Kingdom, which I feel many people don't write or even talk about. Despite being written by a highly educated man, this book is incredibly accessible and easy to read. I really enjoyed this book and I'll be keeping an eye out for anything else Michael Taylor publishes in the future.

A really well written, fascinating look at how Britain approached the abolition of the slave trade. An even more important read in light of the recent BLM protests.

I received a free copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review – thanks so much to Netgalley for sending this to me!

One of my goals for 2020, which I hope to carry on into the new year, has been to educate myself and expand my awareness by reading more non-fiction. I’m extremely grateful to Netgalley for giving me the chance to do that – this book was well outside my comfort zone, and I was really surprised to get approved for an ARC, but so thankful that I did.

The Interest is a meticulously researched account of the long road to abolition that ruthlessly exposes the underbelly of modern-day Britain and the cruelty of the slave trade it was built on. It follows the long, bloody fight of the abolitionist movement, beginning with a plantation rebellion in Demerera in 1823 and concluding with the final dissolution of slavery in 1838, with a final sombering afterword that reflects on the ongoing impact of slavery on modern-day England, and the bloody history that the majority of Brits seem keen to forget.

I was never a keen historian in school, but I do remember that we learned very little about the abolition. Other than the self-congratulatory statement (which I now know to be untrue) that Britain paved the way for abolition, and a very brief outline of the horrors faced by enslaved people, it wasn’t really discussed in any great detail. This book seeks to rectify that with an extremely in-depth examination of everyone involved on the long road to abolition, including the intense opposition that was faced by anti-slavery advocates. It also explores exactly why people were – and still are – so keen to bury their heads in the sand, prioritising their own interests and patriotic pride over the lives of the people who were enslaved.

I was truly impressed at what a detailed and deep dive this book took into the various riots, government meetings, bills and acts that were implemented over the years. For the most part it chooses to focus on the political, social and economic ramifications of the slave trade rather than lingering on descriptions of the atrocities committed in its name, though these are absolutely not brushed under the rug and there is some limited exploration of it. However, the aim of this book was mostly to highlight the willingness of the British people to look the other way, and the tireless efforts of those who refused to do so.

I will admit that at times I was overwhelmed by the sheer number of people who were involved in the campaign, either as an ally or an opposer; there were poets, politicians, writers, missionaries and more, and while the odd name was familiar, I hadn’t heard of most of them. At some points they began to blur together, meaning that I found certain threads a bit difficult to follow. While the details themselves could be a little hard to keep track of, however, the book continues steadily, and in a way it does a great way of showing that the movement really did go in fits and starts, tiny crumbs of progress that slowly built into a roar that couldn’t be ignored. And it wasn’t just the politicians who were involved; as the movement picked up speed, ordinary Brits joined the campaign, some choosing to boycott sugar and other products that had come from plantations, while others shared pamphlets or posters, sewed together petitions that were too large to fit on one sheet of paper, and promoted anti-slavery literature to help spread the word.

I think one of the most illuminating parts of this book was its epilogue, in which the author quickly highlights some harrowing truths about how pervasive slavery has been in British history and culture. He lists reams of well-known British organisations and businesses (banks, insurance companies, universities etc) that were originally funded with the ‘reparations’ paid to former slave owners – reparations paid with a loan which was only paid off in 2015, meaning that modern day Brits, including the descendants of enslaved people, were almost certainly helping to pay the ‘debt’ incurred when their ancestors were freed. He also touches very briefly on the Black Lives Matter movement and the destruction of monuments to prominent slave owners in British history, and the realisation that these statues represent not a sobering reminder of Britain’s failures, but a continuing unwillingness to acknowledge them. He concludes with a short list of ways that we can continue to try and make amends for our country’s horrible, bloody past – by apologising, for a start. Which unfortunately much of the country seems unwilling to do.

This book forced me to confront how little I actually knew about the history of the slave trade – it was a little like flipping over a rock that looks clean on the outside, but underneath there are all these little bugs and worms crawling around underneath. It also provides an illuminating and honestly, somewhat scary insight into how it was that so many people could look the other way, and how that’s been allowed to continue to this day. In many ways, it’s the same old story: because most of the evil happened overseas, out of the public eye, people were easily able to ignore it and focus instead on the financial benefits they reaped from exploiting innocent people. It’s a disturbing and shameful reality that modern-day Britain cannot escape the echoes of the colonialism it inflicted – and continues to inflict – on the rest of the world. The Interest was a heavy and often difficult read, but I’m glad that I read it, and that I now have a better understanding of exactly how the abolition came to pass. It shouldn’t be seen as something to be proud of, but as the bare minimum we should have done, and I hope this book will spread further awareness of this history that my country seems so keen to brush under the rug.

This should be prescribed reading. It's a delicate field right now, but a disinterested, honest, unflinching account of this most grissly section of world history has been long overdue and is so important.

This book is an examination of the 25 year or so 19th century debate over whether, when and how to abolish colonial slave holding (slave trading have being abolished in 1807, the Slavery Abolition Act did not take place until 1833).

The book examines the better known figures of the anti-slavery campaign, but its key distinction is its equal treatment of the many influential establishment figures who populated the pro-slavery campaign, including: the Caribbean countries themselves, their terrible practices, their fear of slave revolts both real and imagined and their blatant travesties of justice in suppressing them, their relentless persecution of non-conformist ministers, the inspiration they took from the US declaration of independence and their resistance to British interference; the British based “West Indies Interest” – partly representatives of the colonial interest but also representing the many parties in Britain with financial interest, both direct and indirect, in slavery; those who simply regarded Africans as at best an inferior form of humanity and so in their prejudices tried framed their opposition to abolition on spurious/ignorant religious or scientific grounds; conservatives who simply resisted any attempt at change as being too risky and risking revolution home and abroad; and (perhaps most shockingly to me) many of the political radicals in Britain who saw the anti-slavery campaign as at best a distraction from campaigning for poverty relief and reform at home and at worst were taken in by the propaganda of the interest about the conditions endured by slaves when compared to say factory workers.

The book’s treatment can at times feel lengthy and the changing cast of characters confusing (as the fortunes of the two campaigns oscillate – sometimes with events in the West Indies, sometimes with other political developments: both the 1832 Reform Act and the issue of Catholic emancipation interact in complex ways with the slavery question); but the author does helpfully signpost where he is going at the start and end of chapters.

As the book progresses the author demonstrates comprehensively that:

“the Abolition Act was neither the inevitable bequest of sweeping anti-slavery sentiment and the triumphant march of British ‘justice’, nor was it a simple coda to the better-known campaign against the slave trade. In reality, the passage of the Act had relied upon several factors: the political collapse of the Tories which led to Reform and the return of a sympathetic House of Commons; the persistent pressure applied by the Anti-Slavery and Agency societies; and the violent slave resistance that finally convinced the British public of the immoral, unsustainable nature of slavery. Until those factors combined in the early 1830s, defending slavery was a tenable, popular position for British conservatives, imperialists, economists, and more besides. Until 1833, slavery had been an essential part of British national life, as much as the Church of England, the monarchy, or the liberties granted by the Glorious Revolution. When we remember it otherwise, we promulgate a self-serving and misleading version of British history.”

And that

the British ‘remember’ that Parliament abolished slavery, but not that Parliament had spent two hundred years encouraging and protecting slavery in the first place; they remember the selflessness of white abolitionists, but not the suffering – let alone the loves, lives, hopes, and dreams – of the enslaved and the sacrifices that they made in order to undermine the institution of slavery

An epilogue to the book examines the discussions among Caribbean nations for reparatory justice from Britain for the long lasting impacts of slavery and, perhaps more powerfully, the way in which the legacy of slavery is still deeply embedded in so many aspects of modern Britain, with so many central figures (historians, theologians, politicians, business dynasty founders, writers, journalists) implicated in its defence (or in white washing its history) and so many Universities, businesses, financial firms, infrastructure, buildings, country estates funded not just by slave fortunes (but by the unprecedented “compensation” that the government paid to colonial slaveholders – not to slaves – after emancipation).

Overall this is a very timely book – the author himself admits that events of 2020 have overtaken his epilogue as he was writing it – and one I would definitely recommend as an essential part of any attempt to understand British history.

A few days ago, newspapers reported that the British parliamentary art collection has over 200 artworks with links to slave trade, among them many depicting Sir Robert Peel and William Gladstone. What the papers reported however, is that these two former prime ministers’ families had links with slavery but not that both men also personally opposed abolition. Their views were not unique and were shared by many politicians, financiers, landowners, religious, cultural and other figures of the time, as Michael Taylor’s book shows. And yes, nearly two hundred years have passed but these attitudes still haven’t been properly acknowledged and reckoned with as some of the reactions to this summer’s toppling of the statues have shown.

In this important and timely book, Taylor argues that there is much amiss with self-congratulatory view of history in Britain, i.e. that Britain led the way in abolishing the slave trade in 1807 because this obfuscates the fact that the abolition of slavery itself did not follow for over a quarter of the century and, when emancipation finally took place, in 1834, former slaves were forced into coerced labour as ‘apprentices’ for a further period of 4 years. Furthermore, while The Interest details the activities and struggles of the anti-slavery campaigners against the powerful West India interest, it also argues that two decades of campaigning might have almost been in vain if not for the more favourable political climate following the Reform Act in 1832.

As well as the leaders of the abolition movement, Taylor also highlights activities of missionaries and women such as Elizabeth Heyrick who in the 1820s revived the campaign to boycott West Indian sugar in her native Leicester (I remember reading elsewhere than her campaign was very successful, about a quarter of Leicester’s population stopped buying it), Anne Knight and Maria Tothill who organised an extensive petition that led to 187,000 signatures presented to the parliament (and needed 4 MPs to carry it). The narratives of Olaudah Equiano, Mary Prince and Ottobah Cugoano are perhaps well known but James Williams, Jamaican apprentice whose 1834 narrative of ‘post-emancipation nightmare’ helped turned the tide against the apprenticeship that followed emancipation is less so. And then there is the West Indian interest of the title and those who supported it including the famous cartoonist George Cruikshank or, supported slavery itself such as the recently beatified Cardinal John Henry Newman.

The Interest is a heavy read. Having studied slave trade and slavery before (including reading extracts from Thomas Thistlewood’s diaries), at times I still found the book or, rather the attitudes, actions and deeply held beliefs of such a large portion of the establishment shocking and hard to stomach. This itself makes it an essential book. Highly recommended.

My thanks to Bodley Head, Random House UK, Vintage and Netgalley for the opportunity to read The Interest and to Michael Taylor for writing it.

Taylor has written an exhaustive, much-needed and timely antidote to Britain's self-congratulatory narrative on slavery, telling the underlying story of how, firstly, Britain abolished the slave *trade* but not slavery as an institution; how the West Indian Interest of slave-holders in combination with a primarily (though not exclusively) Tory interest of Establishment bodies, including the Anglican Church, bankers and financiers, publishers and newspapers, worked together to maintain around 700,000 enslaved men, women and children in the Caribbean colonies; how it took over ten years for *slave-owning* to be made illegal; how, even then, it was abolished in name only, with only children under 6 being emancipated, and everyone else having to work for free in order to purchase their freedom; and how the compensation that was so vast it was only paid off in 2018 was allocated to the *slave-owners* not the enslaved to make up to them for the loss of their 'property'.

It's a fascinating and shameful story told in an accessible way - and one of the most insidious aspects is that it's a story that is still 'hidden' and not generally known today. Taylor's narrative is based on his doctoral research so is evidenced extensively and told with balance and judgment (though his own personal feelings are made quite clear) but scholarly paraphernalia is tucked away at the back and doesn't disrupt the story.

One of the most enlightening aspects for me is the extent to which 'popular' figures from the period were pro-slavery and, often, outspoken in the way they racialised the institution: the Duke of Wellington and Robert Peel may be no surprise but that Anthony Trollope praised a propaganda book of pro-slavery stories as did Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and that Elizabeth Barrett Browning mourned the way abolition would 'ruin' Jamaica where her family owned a slave-worked sugar plantation comes as a nasty shock. It's hard to be reminded that figures who we admire for their literary work might have held vastly different and insupportable political opinions.

The point that Taylor discusses at the end is that this isn't 'just' history but has also shaped modern Britain and the Caribbean: the slave-owners who received a vast compensation (see my notes below) have passed down their legacy of capital (part-funded by modern tax-payers - the government bond debt was only paid off in 2018), privilege and status to their descendants, as well as their buildings, monuments and statues amongst which we live. Absolutely of the moment, this is essential reading, I'd say.

A meticulously researched look at the shocking story of the West Indian & British government self-interest that held up the process of emancipation for the slaves in the British colonies of the caribbean.

This is a fascinating insight into the history of abolition and despite the passage of nearly two hundred years this book left me angry and at times almost in tears of frustration as the British government and the West Indian 'Interest' resisted at every turn the freeing of the slaves.

Like most people in Britain I was aware of the slave trade but had no idea of the lengths that the interested parties went to to avoid the anti-slavery campaign coming to fruition.

This is a well written history that charts both the twists and turns of the politics at home as well as the stories of ill treatment and rebellion abroad.

This book fills in many gaps in my education that were ignored when at school in the 1970's and puts a number of English 'heroes' reputations in a new light.

A great read that covers a topic that is now at the forefront of everyone's minds with the Black Lives Matter campaign this summer

If you think you understand about the trials and tribulations of the abolitionists in the 19th century then I suggest you give this a try.