“A solid introduction and useful survey of slaving activity by the Muslims of North Africa over the course of several centuries.” —Chronicles Everybody knows about the transatlantic slave trade, which saw black Africans snatched from their homes, taken across the Atlantic Ocean and then sold into slavery. However, a century before Britain became involved in this terrible business, whole villages and towns in England, Ireland, Italy, Spain and other European countries were being depopulated by slavers, who transported the men, women and children to Africa where they were sold to the highest bidder. This is the forgotten slave trade; one which saw over a million Christians forced into captivity in the Muslim world. Starting with the practice of slavery in the ancient world, Simon Webb traces the history of slavery in Europe, showing that the numbers involved were vast and that the victims were often treated far more cruelly than black slaves in America and the Caribbean. Castration, used very occasionally against black slaves taken across the Atlantic, was routinely carried out on an industrial scale on European boys who were exported to Africa and the Middle East. Most people are aware that the English city of Bristol was a major center for the transatlantic slave trade in the eighteenth century, but hardly anyone knows that 1,000 years earlier it had been an important staging-post for the transfer of English slaves to Africa. Reading this book will forever change how you view the slave trade and show that many commonly held beliefs about this controversial subject are almost wholly inaccurate and mistaken.

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 The idea that any discussion of slavery should be linked to the transportation of black Africans to the New World would have struck most people as bizarre fifty years ago. The stories of slavery in the Old Testament have been omitted from modern books on the history of Britain. #2 The practice of slavery has been eroding away from the general public for years. Today, most people understand that a civilized society cannot tolerate murder, even that which is sanctioned and authorized by the state. They feel the same way about slavery. #3 Slavery has been an accepted and unremarkable institution for thousands of years. It has been widely practiced throughout the whole of human history, right up to the present day. The first reference to slavery dates back over 4,000 years. #4 The Bible contains a passage that seems to support slavery, as it states that the black people living in the hottest part of the world are destined to be servants and slaves. Judaism and Christianity did not view the institution of slavery as wicked or unjust, and there were no condemnations of it.

Is it true that the trans-Atlantic slave trade, about which so much has been heard in recent years, would have been impossible without the willing and enthusiastic cooperation of African leaders? Slavery was a common practice in Africa long before the arrival of Europeans, with the trade in black slaves, who were transported from Africa to America and the islands of the Caribbean, aided by the African traders who benefited from the arrangement. Even when Europe and America outlawed slavery and the slave trade, those living in Africa clung tenaciously to the old ways and refused to relinquish what was, to them, a time-honored custom. Is it for this reason that slavery lingers on in Africa to this day? In this book, Simon Webb explores the history of slavery in Africa and finds that it was not necessarily imposed upon the continent by Europeans, but was rather an integral part of many, perhaps most, cultures. Even when the British deployed their army and navy to try to suppress the trade in slaves during the nineteenth century, their efforts were largely ineffectual because many societies saw no reason to give up such an old, useful and profitable system. At a time when the subject of the trans-Atlantic slave trade is seldom out of the news, this book provides a challenge to the popularly accepted view of the matter. Nobody reading it will ever view slavery and the slave trade in quite the same light again.

White Cargo is the forgotten story of the thousands of Britons who lived and died in bondage in Britain's American colonies. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, more than 300,000 white people were shipped to America as slaves. Urchins were swept up from London's streets to labor in the tobacco fields, where life expectancy was no more than two years. Brothels were raided to provide "breeders" for Virginia. Hopeful migrants were duped into signing as indentured servants, unaware they would become personal property who could be bought, sold, and even gambled away. Transported convicts were paraded for sale like livestock. Drawing on letters crying for help, diaries, and court and government archives, Don Jordan and Michael Walsh demonstrate that the brutalities usually associated with black slavery alone were perpetrated on whites throughout British rule. The trade ended with American independence, but the British still tried to sell convicts in their former colonies, which prompted one of the most audacious plots in Anglo-American history. This is a saga of exploration and cruelty spanning 170 years that has been submerged under the overwhelming memory of black slavery. White Cargo brings the brutal, uncomfortable story to the surface.

In the years leading up to the First World War, the United Kingdom was subjected to a ferocious campaign of bombing and arson. Those conducting this terrorist offensive were members of the Women's Social and Political Union; better known as the suffragettes. ??The targets for their attacks ranged from St Paul's Cathedral and the Bank of England in London to theatres and churches in Ireland. The violence, which included several attempted assassinations, culminated in June 1914 with an explosion in Westminster Abbey.??Simon Webb explores the way in which the suffragette bombers have been airbrushed from history, leaving us with a distorted view of the struggle for female suffrage. Not only were the suffragettes far more aggressive than is generally known, but there exists the very real and surprising possibility that their militant activities actually delayed, rather than hastened, the granting of the parliamentary vote to British women.

This study of friendly fire on civilians during the London Blitz and the attack on Pearl harbor exposes the unknown horror behind these iconic WWII events. The London Blitz and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor have ascended to the level of myth for Britain and America. Yet both of these artfully constructed narratives of heroic resistance to aerial bombardment conceal the massacre of citizens by the very militaries charged with protecting them. In Britain, thousands of civilians were killed when the army shelled London and other cities to prevent residents from fleeing the German bombs. At Pearl Harbor, American warships fired their heavy guns at the city of Honolulu with devastating results. Simon Webb begins this volume with an overview of bombing and anti-aircraft guns from the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871 through to the First World War. He then reveals the casualties which friendly fire from heavy artillery inflicted upon British and American civilians during World War Two. In the case of the British, these deaths were a deliberate part of a shockingly cynical policy. There were times during the German bombing of London when more people were being killed by British shells than by enemy bombs.

Dr Tainter describes nearly two dozen cases of collapse and reviews more than 2000 years of explanations. He then develops a new and far-reaching theory.