Harvard University Press
Island on Fire: The Revolt That Ended Slavery in the British Empire
Key Metrics
- Tom Zoellner
- Harvard University Press
- Paperback
- 9780674271159
- -
- -
- History > Caribbean & West Indies - General
- English
Secure TransactionBook Description
Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award
Impeccably researched and seductively readable...Tom Zoellner tells the story of Sam Sharpe's revolution manqué, and the subsequent abolition of slavery in Jamaica, in a way that's acutely relevant to the racial unrest of our own time.
--Madison Smartt Bell, author of All Souls' Rising
A pounding narrative of events that led to the end of slavery in the British colonies...Zoellner's vigorous, fast-paced account brings to life a varied gallery of participants...The revolt failed to improve conditions for the enslaved in Jamaica, but it crucially wounded the institution of slavery itself.
--Fergus M. Bordewich, Wall Street Journal
Zoellner makes deft use of primary sources, and illustrates how the atmosphere of energetic political reform and events like Sharpe's rebellion converged to end slavery...in the British Empire at large.
--New Yorker
The last uprising of enslaved people in Jamaica started as a peaceful labor strike a few days shy of Christmas in 1831. It soon turned into a full-blown revolt, leaving hundreds of plantation houses in smoking ruins. The rebels lost their military gamble, but their principled defiance triggered a decisive turn against slavery.
Island on Fire is a dramatic day-by-day account of these transformative events. A skillful storyteller, Tom Zoellner makes extensive use of primary sources to tell the intimate story of the men and women who rose up and briefly tasted liberty. He brings to life the rebellion's enigmatic leader, Samuel Sharpe, and shows how news of his fiery resistance turned the tide of opinion in London and hastened the end of slavery in the British empire.
Author Bio
Tom Zoellner is the author of eight nonfiction books, including Island on Fire: The Revolt that Ended Slavery in the British Empire, and works as a professor at Chapman University and Dartmouth College. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Harper’s, The American Scholar, The Oxford American, Time, Foreign Policy, Men’s Health, Slate, Scientific American, Audubon, Sierra, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The Texas Observer, Departures, The American Scholar, The Wall Street Journal and many other publications.
Tom is a fifth-generation Arizonan and a former staff writer for The Arizona Republic and the San Francisco Chronicle. He is the recipient of fellowships and residencies from The Lannan Foundation, the Corporation of Yaddo, the Economic Hardship Reporting Project and the Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation.
Source: Chapman University
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