| Popis: |
This is the third book in a trilogy that began with Popular Politics and British Anti-Slavery (1995).1 Two broad themes have been at the heart of this endeavour. The first is opinion-building. Popular Politics sought to answer a simple question: how did eighteenth-century activists turn an idea into a successful popular movement? Creating a constituency for abolition, especially at a period when transatlantic slavery was considered a necessary adjunct of empire, demanded skill and ingenuity. It also required highly developed organizational skills and an eye for business. Anti-slavery activists cleverly exploited an expanding consumer society to push their ideas and values, as well as their insistent demands, from the periphery to the centre of public debate. In the process, they helped to make abolition fashionable, Josiah Wedgwood’s famous cameo of the kneeling slave being an obvious case in point. Cheap disposable literature, inertia selling and the innovative use of images and image-making, all excited an interest in anti-slavery that found expression in mass petitioning and the emergence of the first modern reform movement. By shifting attention away from the narrow confines of Westminster, ... |
