Empire of Necessity
SHORTLISTED FOR THE SAMUEL JOHNSON PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 2014
WINNER OF THE BANCROFT PRIZE 2015
One morning in 1805, off a remote island in the South Pacific, seal hunter and abolitionist Captain Amasa Delano climbed aboard the Tryal, a distressed Spanish slaver. He spent all day on the ship, sharing food and water, yet failed to see that the slaves, having slaughtered most of the crew, were now their own masters. Later, when Delano realized the deception, he chased the ship down, responding with barbaric violence. Greg Grandin follows this group of courageous slaves and their persecutor from the horrors of the Middle Passage to their explosive confrontation.
A page-turning and profoundly moving account of obsessive mania, imperial exploitation, and lost ideals, The Empire of Necessity captures the epic clash of peoples, economies, and faiths that was shaping the so-called New World and the Age of Revolution.
Greg Grandin is author of Fordlandia, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. A professor of history at New York University, he has written for the New Statesman, New York Times, and others, and has been a Guggenheim Fellow. He lives in New York.