Bøker av James Walvin

"James Walvin's brilliant new book is more than a story about the fascinating legacy of a song written by an eighteenth-century English cleric that today has a unique status in American and indeed British life. It is also a story of cross-cultural translation and travel, of exploitation, adaptation, and commercial interests, and of the power of music-making in the service of humanistic freedom, regardless of faith, nation, or race."--Ben Carrington, author of Race, Sport and Politics: The Sporting Black Diaspora "A detailed and astonishing revelation of the forgotten history behind the seemingly familiar. Passionately written and meticulously researched."--David Olusoga, author of Black and British: A Short, Essential History "An illuminating history of the most resounding hymn in African American history. Born of the tortured soul of an English slaver, who found his faith and rejected slavery, 'Amazing Grace' became the soothing hymn that inspired millions. The enslaved cotton worker, the folk singer, the civil rights marcher, the gospel choir, the blues woman, and President Obama, all moved by the sweet sound of this beautiful, historic hymn."--Edward B. Rugemer, Professor of History and African American Studies, Yale University "This book tells the story of the Christian hymn 'Amazing Grace, ' from its creation by English former slave ship captain John Newton in 1772, through its popularization among performers and listeners in the United States, to its function today as a kind of anthem for healing in the US, Europe, and elsewhere in the world. The historical coverage as well as the range of subjects and musical scenes addressed is impressive."--Eric Porter, author of A People's History of SFO: The Making of the Bay Area and an Airport "A fun read that tracks 'Amazing Grace, ' a song that holds much meaningfulness across diverse swaths of society, across various genres and performance styles, and across the eighteenth to the twenty-first centuries."--James Padilioni, author of To Ask Infinity Some Questions: San Martín de Porres and the Black Hagiographic Mysteries of Florida

"Historian James Walvin looks at the history of our collective sweet tooth, beginning with the sugar grown by enslaved people who had been uprooted and shipped vast distances to undertake the grueling labor on plantations. The combination of sugar and slavery would transform the tastes of the Western world"--]cProvided by publisher.

A major study of how slavery and enslaved people shaped the modern worldFor the best part of four centuries, enslaved Africans were the human cogs in a vast machine which transformed the face of the Americas, enhanced the well-being of the Western world, and created cultural habits we are familiar with today. In A World Transformed, celebrated historian James Walvin presents a comprehensive history of slavery and its shaping of the world we know. It is a global story that ranges from the capitalist economy, labour and the environment to social culture and ideas of family, beauty and taste.Arguing that slavery can be fully understood only by stepping back from traditional national histories, A World Transformed collects the most recent scholarship to illustrate just how thoroughly slavery is responsible for the making of the modern world. The enforced transportation and labour of millions of Africans became a massive social and economic force, promoting the rapid development of multiple new and enormous trading systems which had profound global consequences which reverberate down to the present day. The labour and products of enslaved people changed the consumption habits of millions - in India and Asia, Europe and Africa, in colonised and Indigenous American societies. Across time, slavery shaped many of the dominant features of Western taste: items and habits or rare and costly luxuries, some of which might seem, at first glance, utterly removed from the horrific reality of slavery. A World Transformed traces the global impacts of slavery over centuries, far beyond its legal or historical limits, confirming that the world created by slave labour lives on today.

The years between 1776 and 1851 are of profound importance for the social and urban historian. English town dwellers of the period experienced some fundamental changes in their way of life: rapid population growth; and an unprecedented rate of social change resulting from this. First published in 1984, this book provides an overview of this topic.

As we approach the bicentenary of the abolition of the Atlantic trade, Walvin has selected the historical texts that recreate the mindset that made such a savage institution possible - morally acceptable even. Setting these historical documents against Walvin's own incisive historical narrative, the two layers of this extraordinary, definitive account of the Atlantic slave trade enable us to understand the rise and fall of one of the most shameful chapters in British history, the repercussions of which the modern world is still living with.

Surveying the key questions of slavery, this book traces the arguments which have surrounded its history in recent years. A wide-ranging thematic organisation covers racial, economic, political, social, cultural, gender and colonial dimensions.

This volume describes the life of Henry Clarke, a teacher, a cleric politician, a businessman, an inventor, and the father of eleven children who lived in Jamaica for the last 60 years of his life.