Show Notes
Eric Williams was Trinidad and Tobago's first Prime Minister after independence. Pretty consequential stuff. But for us, and for this week's guest Alex Renton, Eric was so much more.
Because in the 1940s, he became the first historian to forensically question the economics of slavery. The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography has dubbed his masterpiece, Capitalism and Slavery, "the most influential book" on the history of the subject in the 20th century. It aligns the slave economy not only with the expansion of the British Empire, but also with the Napoleonic Wars and the Industrial Revolution – and it questions the motives behind the abolitionist movement.
Heady stuff. But also great fun and we thoroughly recommend this week's listen. Enjoy the rest of your summer and see you soon! Head over to www.trappedhistory.com to sign up to the award-winning podcast, get our newsletter, bonus episodes and much, much more. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
More from Trapped History
As we close out Season 7, Trapped History takes a long dark walk down one of the most uncomfortable roads in history, going deep into the story of one British family which owned and traded in slaves.
After pulling the curtain away from James Bond, writer Mark O'Connell chose Bond's book designer for his Hall of Fame nominee.
He's the man's man, the lady's man, the pinnacle of heterosexual hyper-masculinity. His name is Bond.
This week, we've got a special Trapped History short for you. It felt wrong to ask Jocelyn to nominate someone for the Hall of Fame (Vera Rubin, anyone?) and so today we've got some choice gems which didn't make it into the main show.
In its 120 year history, nearly 1,000 people have won a Nobel Prize. And we're going to ask you a simple question: how many of those Nobel laureates are women? What, half of them maybe? Or perhaps more realistically, one in four? One in ten even?