This was such an illuminating read and a resource that I'll definitely return to. Black Ghosts of Empire has earned a place on the shelf with titles like Stamped from the Beginning, Caste, and The 1619 Project- books that have begun to teach me the history that I should have learned long ago. Books like this have shown me the failures of the US public school education.

4.5 stars. Thank you to Net Galley and Scribner for the ARC in exchange for my honest review. This was a riveting historical read of all the things we don't really learn in history about slavery and the emancipation that followed. The author starts with slavery in Haiti and Cuba and the continued involvement by European nations, especially England and France. They made nations pay their way to "freedom" while providing loans that would accrue interest for over 150 yrs. England and France like to say they abolished slavery in their countries yet they were still investing in slavery in the Caribbean and other island nations. There are also sections re US post-emancipation where sharecropping, re-education programs and non-enforcement of slavery happened regularly keeping people in a different form of slavery. It's unbelievable that in France the Rothschild family still have loans from the time of emancipation which they're most likely still collecting interest. As we can all see, the consequences of this history still plays out today and organizers and activists are still fighting for justice and remedy. I highly recommend this book!

Black Ghost of Empire is a well-researched and well-written book that provides a comprehensive overview of the long history of slavery and its aftermath. Manjapra does an excellent job of weaving together a global narrative, showing how the institution of slavery shaped the world we live in today.

Essential reading and an excellent companion to books like The 1619 Project and Caste.

Many thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for sharing this book with me. All thoughts are my own.

Scholar and historian Kris Manjapra presents a challenge to rethink and re-evaluate positions about reparations for descendants of enslaved people of African descent in “Black Ghost of Empire: The Long Death of Slavery and the Failure of Emancipation.” Manjapra contrasts the popular history of emancipation – the governmental and legal mechanism of outlawing the institutions – with the actual experiences of liberation among people who resisted bondage. Throughout the history of enslavement in the Americas, Europe, and the Caribbean, declarations of emancipation were rarely supported with enforcement. Modified versions of slavery, such as indentured servitude, persisted as common practice among White planters and slavers. Worse, reparations were paid to slaveholders and plantation owners for losing property rights.

“Ghosts announce the unended. They settle, frighten and haunt.” Manjapra shares pivotal moments in American and Pan-African history rarely discussed in classrooms or in everyday discourse. He asserts that “ghostlining” renders the sordid history of enslavement and enduring mechanisms of White supremacy prevent us from moving forward.

Reading “Black Ghost of Empire” from my lens as a settler colonist in the United States, I was struck by the strength of will and resolve of spirit exhibited by Black liberationists to secure their own freedom, despite gargantuan odds. “Abolitionism bubbled up from below,” writes Manjapra, illustrating Black self-determination in multiple revolts in Haiti, legal challenges in London, and myriad coordinated acts of resistance against Jim Crow laws in the U.S.

Manjapra’s research and explication show us that the conversation – and embodied practice – of reparations for slavery is not new. White supremacist systems in settler nationals governed the process for the perpetuation of the caste system. Generations after emancipation, slave-owners, and their descendants benefited financially from policies that favored patrimonial leaders. Enslaved and freed peoples organized and strategized to act upon a vision for liberatory future. People of all backgrounds have an opportunity to dismantle anti-Black racism and achieve reparatory justice for slavery.

What an important book to think about the lasting impact of the failure of reconstruction. It was so long ago but the effects still ripple into today. This is such an important book for the argument of "that was a long time ago".

An informative, thoroughly-researched analysis of how slavery didn't really end. This book is more academic in tone, so might be challenging for some readers to get through, but is worth that challenge.

Pub date: 4/19/22
Genre: nonfiction, history
In one sentence: Emancipation is thought to have ended slavery, but Black Ghost of Empire shows that it was just another tool to enforce racial disparities.

This book is a deep dive into emancipations across the world and their important consequences. The most shocking story for me was the story of Haiti and how the French government's demands for reparations for slaveholders prevented the country from providing for its citizens. This and the other stories in the book are heartbreaking and maddening - it is almost unbelievable how the interests of slaveholders were continuously prioritized over those of the former slaves.

If you've read books like The 1619 Project and Four Hundred Souls, this is a great companion work to pick up. It is a bit more academic in tone, so I'd recommend doing it as a "one chapter a day" read so you don't feel rushed.

Thank you to Scribner for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

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.

Did you know that slave owners were paid reparations after slaves were freed for their “loss of property”? These reparations would equate to hundreds of million dollars today. Did you know that these now “freed” slaves were forced to work for their former slave masters as unpaid “apprentices” because they were deemed uncivilized and needed to apprentice with their “former” slave owner to “learn” how to act in society?
Did you know police were used in the late 1800’s to keep “freed” slaves in line while working as unpaid servants? If these free men, women and children wanted to quit working for their former masters they could not. If they left the plantation they were subject to arrest, incarceration and even death. Ironically almost 150 years later Black people still face mass incarceration, and are still being over policed and murdered. Read all about this and more in the fascinating book #BlackGhostofEmpire on sale now!

This book took me a bit longer to read as it was a lot to digest. I will say this is history that needs to be told. This is why we want kids to learn about this countries real history so these atrocities never happen again. Thank you. @netgalley for this ARC

Black Ghost of Empire is not a lengthy work of historical analysis, but it is dense with information organized in a carefully crafted argument. The book explores the concept of emancipation, the many forms it took, and who stood to gain from each method (spoiler alert: it was not the people released from enslavement). Manjapra compares different localized acts of emancipation while highlighting their interconnectedness across space and time.

Before getting into the details of specific emancipation projects, Manjapra elucidates the etymology of the term. Its origins lie in Latin and with the Roman concept of a slave-owner's voluntary release of slaves. This emphasizes the inherited view of emancipation as a process controlled by and favoring the owner with no agency or consideration for an enslaved person in the implementation. This is a theme throughout the different global examples spanning the 18th and 19th centuries. Emancipation schemes aimed to prolong slave-owner power over enslaved people and allow them to keep or even inflate their wealth. Periods of extended indentured servitude, re-enslavement elsewhere, and reparations (!) for slave-owners for loss of "property" were common.

Beyond examining the goals and results of emancipation, Manjapra shows how black people resisted both enslavement and the following schemes to release them on white terms. They ran away, revolted, and created mutual aid societies. They wrote about their experiences, hopes, and plans for the future. They formed political movements and agitated for change.

This book powerfully dispels misconceptions that emancipation ushered in a time of freedom and improved opportunities for enslaved people. Rather, it increased racial disparities in wealth and solidified barriers to black social mobility. There are a plethora of important ramifications for current society, not least of which is the need for reparations to those whose ancestors suffered enslavement. This is an informative, impactful read. I highly recommend it. Thanks to Scribner for my copy to read and review!

A compreshensive, and well researched look into slavery in several parts of the world, as well how they were emanciapted at differnt times. Great read for anyone doing or into research or academia. It is a powerful read with a lot of information on each and every page.

This book describes several types of emancipation of formerly enslaved people. In each case, actual freedom was elusive, and if it happened at all it took a very long time, leaving the formerly enslaved people significantly disadvantaged. Gradual emancipation - in New England and the mid-Atlantic states of the United States and in the Spanish Americas, where freedom was paid for by continued forced labor and the goal of actual freedom kept getting pushed forward. Retroactive emancipation - decades after the slaves revolted in Haiti, France “emancipated” the slaves, provided that Haiti go into perpetual debt to French banks in order to pay the former slaveholders (for a century). Compensated emancipation - the British Empire permitted continued forced labor and the British government gave cash payouts to the slaveholders, setting a precedent for other countries. War emancipation - exemplified by the American Civil War and it’s aftermath. Conquest emancipations - “While refusing to regulate the abolition of slavery in colonial Africa, colonial administrations simultaneously pointed to slavery as their justification to extend wars of conquest across African society.”

“British slaveowners and their heirs received lucrative state-funded reparations bankrolled by British taxpayers for 180 years until 2015. On the other hand, the emancipated African people of the Caribbean states were deprived of education, healthcare, the right to land and livelihood, the vote, and the foundations for independent economies.” 2015! Can you even imagine that? That’s what you can expect when the terms of emancipation are governed by the oppressors. Instead of reparations to the formerly enslaved, you get indentured servitude, Jim Crow laws and payments that further enriched the slave holders.

This book certainly had a lot of information and read like a text book (although one written by a pretty disgruntled professor). I sort of wavered back and forth between information overload and fury. About 25% of the book consists of endnotes. The book is short and should be read. You will learn a lot.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.

This book is filled with tons of important information that is so often suppressed from the public. Most people do not want to see the horrific things we have done and are doing to the African American community. We would like to think that slavery is in the past when it so clearly is not. There are residual side effects that sadly will continue unless we as a society decide to fix what was taken away from so many.

It was powerful to see the history of slavery the way Kris Manjapara wrote it. However, his book reminded me of a college textbook. The material was dense and took me awhile to get through. I am not sure if this occurred because the content itself was difficult or I was just worried about dissecting it for a term paper.

Special thanks to NetGalley.com and Scribner for allowing me to read this book in exchange for my honest feedback.

Emancipation has a complicated history. This book gives a well-researched, comprehensive education about the subject. It contains a lot of information. The author examines, in detail, the terms and conditions that the United States and other countries have implemented for the emancipation of their slaves. It is quite a bit more complex than just freeing the slaves. Thank you NetGalley for allowing me to read and review an advance copy of this book.

I am grateful to have been given the chance to read an ARC of Black Ghost of Empire during Black History Month. Kris Manjapra has taken a journey into the void of slave history at no small personal cost, I think. This Harvard educated professor who teaches at Tufts University has made that void personal in a way I can’t avert my eyes from.
When we talk about global slave trade, it makes it too impersonal. Dr. Manjapra turns that around and shows that what we cannot ever forget: that slavery was domestic terrorism on our part. We terrorized thousands of human beings, while stripping them of their history and identity, and we continue to do so.
This book is incredibly timely in age when it is deemed okay for police officers to kill African-American men (and sometimes women; ie. Breanna Taylor), and ask questions later. We must learn it’s message before we can move forward.

Do you ever read something that is so glaringly obvious yet it still blows your mind? Kris Manjapra pieced together the history that I knew, with the things I should have known, sprinkled with honest observations that left me dumbfounded but also telling myself “DUH!” The biggest takeaway for me was that emancipation was done by and for the perpetrators of slavery. It wasn’t informed by Black liberationists. The people with the power to enact change were by and large the criminals and their main priority was protecting their peers and wallets. Not only that, but slave owners received reparations while denying the humans they stole, abused, and often killed any reparations or even apologies. The arguments and pleas made by Black liberationists in the 1860s are frighteningly close to what we hear today from Black people still fighting the same fight.

I think this was a really important book for me to read and I would recommend it to all of my friends and family. We still see the effects of emancipations around the world today and it’s important that we are educated on them. When we learn to recognize these harms, we can better work to repair them. (And this time, we should listen to the voices of those who are affected and let them lead.)