Description: "Written in 1774, Edward Long's History of Jamaica, attempted to define White and Black as essentially different and unequal. Catherine Hall unpicks the contradictions in Long's thinking, exposing the insidious myths and stereotypes that have allowed reconfigured forms of racial difference and racial capitalism to live on in contemporary societies"--
Brief description: Catherine Hall is Emerita Professor of History at University College London and a prize-winning author. Her work focuses on Britain and empire, and includes Civilising Subjects: Metropole and Colony in the English Imagination, 1830-1867 (2002), Macaulay and Son: Architects of Imperial Britain (2012), and Legacies of British Slave-Ownership: Colonial Slavery and the Formation of Victorian Britain (co-authored with Nicholas Draper et al.; Cambridge, 2014). Between 2009 and 2015 she was the principal investigator on the ESRC/AHRC project 'Legacies of British Slave-ownership'.
Review Quotes: 'Once in a while a big book comes along that compels you to drop everything, clear your schedule and focus intently. Lucky Valley is a publication event, a magnificent counterhistory of racial capitalism and an urgent call by one of the preeminent historians of our time to dismantle and redress the enduring injustices of Edward Long's world.' Vincent Brown, author of Tacky's Revolt: The Story of an Atlantic Slave War