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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
David Barnett

Eighty-year-old study of British slave trade is back in the bestsellers list

Eric Williams, author of Capitalism and Slavery.
Eric Williams, author of Capitalism and Slavery, in 1961. Photograph: Val Wilmer/Getty Images

A book of unpalatable truths about Britain’s slave trade has become a UK bestseller, almost 80 years after author Eric Williams was told by a British publisher: “I would never publish such a book, for it would be contrary to the British tradition.”

Capitalism and Slavery was first published in the US in 1944. It was published in the UK by the independent publisher André Deutsch in 1964, with a number of reprints over the next 20 years.

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