Product Description
The Interest
Author: Michael Taylor
Format: Paperback
How the British Establishment Resisted the Abolition of Slavery
Discover how the campaign to end slavery divided Britain and was almost thwarted by some of the most powerful and famous figures of the era.
**Shortlisted for the Orwell Prize for Political Writing**
In 1807, Parliament outlawed the slave trade in the British Empire. But for the next 25 years more than 700,000 people remained enslaved, due to the immensely powerful pro-slavery group the 'West India Interest'.
This ground-breaking history discloses the extent to which the 'Interest' were supported by nearly every figure of the British establishment - fighting, not to abolish slavery, but to maintain it for profit. Gripping and unflinching, The Interest is the long-overdue exposé of one of Britain's darkest, most turbulent times.
A Daily Telegraph Book of the Year
'Scintillating . . . compulsively readable' — Guardian
'A magnificent book . . . riveting' — Evening Standard
'A critical piece of history and a devastating exposé' — Shashi Tharoor, author of Inglorious Empire
'Thoroughly researched and potent' — David Lammy MP
'Essential reading' — Simon Sebag Montefiore
About the Author
Michael Taylor is the author of Impossible Monsters: Dinosaurs, Darwin and the War Between Science and Religion, which was shortlisted for the Duff Cooper Prize 2024 and chosen as a Book of the Year by the Economist, TLS and Waterstones, as well as The Interest: How the British Establishment Resisted the Abolition of Slavery, which was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize and chosen as a Daily Telegraph Book of the Year. He was born in 1988 and graduated with a double first in history from the University of Cambridge, where he earned his PhD. He has since been Lecturer in Modern British History at Balliol College, Oxford, and a Visiting Fellow at the British Library's Eccles Centre for American Studies.
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