This revelatory nonfiction book looks at how "emancipation" movements in Europe, Africa, and North and South America prioritized the lives and livelihoods of slaveholders as opposed to freed enslaved people. Manjapra uses a litany of facts to discuss the "after" emancipation realities in these locations, how some forces attempted to fight back (Haiti), and how, inevitably, reparations went to slaveholders and their heirs, while institutions and policies were formed to continue to subjugate Black people. It's enlightening and enraging.

Although this book contains many stats and citations, Manjapra still shares the information in an engaging tone, while highlighting things most definitely not taught in history classes. Reading about the truly repugnant Thomas Thistlewood, a Jamaican slaveholder who bragged nonchalantly in his diary about raping over 135 Black women, some repeatedly was eye-opening. The specific torture he invented was particularly stomach-churning. I didn't know about the Haitian Revolution or how Britain's response to emancipation created an imperial system that is still in play to this day.

Manjapra's thesis is this: The dissolution of slavery led to institutional and societal structures in these locales that fueled the continuation of a racial hierarchy where white supremacy reigned and the devastation wrought by slavery reverberated through future generations. He proves this with painstaking factual detail, enlightening anecdotes, and impassioned prose. An educational gem.