Shortlisted for the RSL Christopher Bland Prize 2021
'Rarely has family history been so vivid' JENNY UGLOW
'An extraordinarily original work' AMANDA FOREMAN
Like many well-to-do Georgian families, the Atkinsons' wealth was acquired at a terrible cost, through the labour and lives of enslaved Africans. Drawing on his ancestors' private correspondence, Richard Atkinson pieces together their unsettling story, from the weather-beaten house in Cumbria where they once lived to the ruins of their sugar estates in Jamaica. This extraordinarily original work of detective biography is also a uniquely personal account of one of the most disturbing chapters in Britain's colonial past.
| ISBN: | 9780007509232 |
| Publication date: | 8th July 2021 |
| Author: | Richard Atkinson |
| Publisher: | 4th Estate an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers |
| Format: | Paperback |
| Pagination: | 512 pages |
| Genres: |
Autobiography: historical, political and military True stories of discovery Social and cultural history Genealogy, heraldry, names and honours Colonialism and imperialism Slavery and abolition of slavery Family history, tracing ancestors Economic history African history |