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Black Ghost of Empire: The Long Death of Slavery and the Failure of Emancipation by Kris Manjapra
rainbopagn's review
challenging
informative
slow-paced
3.75
I think I would have given this book a higher rating if I hadn’t recently read American Slave Coast. I began to feel bogged down in the last chapter. But the first few definitely rewrite what we think of as emancipation
kmarkus15's review against another edition
Ran out of time in library hold. I didn’t find myself pulled into this book.
jakeclf's review
5.0
Blew me away--
Similarly to Richard Huzzey's Freedom Burning, Black Ghost of Empire by Kris Manjapra explores ‘the end of slavery’ across the imperial world. Manjapra employs the use of a lot of posthumous terms like “afterlife”, “endings”, and “long death” to understand the implied failure of emancipation (1,4, and 125). Principally, Black Ghost of Empire “pursues a comparative perspective on emancipation processes across the globe” (8). I ask, what can we learn differently from a comparative history rather than a singular one? Are all histories comparative in some way? Are all histories singular in other ways? What is singular about this history? In my opinion, the topic of slavery. What is comparative about this history? The locations and processes of emancipation. Manjapra explores four types of emancipation. First, gradual emancipations (New England, American mid-Atlantic, Spanish Americas) that made black people pay for their freedom. Second, retroactive emancipations (Haiti) that sought to contain the revolution in Haiti. Third, compensated emancipations (the British empire) which allowed for slave-owners to enrich themselves enormously through payouts from the public state. And finally, war emancipation through the American Civil War and the ongoing ‘dirty’ war against black people in the United States. My additional questions about the Manjapra reading are: what does Black Ghosts of Empire add to the history of the Haitian Revolution (with regard to Trouillot’s Silencing the Past)? What does Manjapra mean by the term ‘the long death’? What is ‘global Jim Crow’? And, how does Manjapra redefine the meaning of the word emancipation?
Similarly to Richard Huzzey's Freedom Burning, Black Ghost of Empire by Kris Manjapra explores ‘the end of slavery’ across the imperial world. Manjapra employs the use of a lot of posthumous terms like “afterlife”, “endings”, and “long death” to understand the implied failure of emancipation (1,4, and 125). Principally, Black Ghost of Empire “pursues a comparative perspective on emancipation processes across the globe” (8). I ask, what can we learn differently from a comparative history rather than a singular one? Are all histories comparative in some way? Are all histories singular in other ways? What is singular about this history? In my opinion, the topic of slavery. What is comparative about this history? The locations and processes of emancipation. Manjapra explores four types of emancipation. First, gradual emancipations (New England, American mid-Atlantic, Spanish Americas) that made black people pay for their freedom. Second, retroactive emancipations (Haiti) that sought to contain the revolution in Haiti. Third, compensated emancipations (the British empire) which allowed for slave-owners to enrich themselves enormously through payouts from the public state. And finally, war emancipation through the American Civil War and the ongoing ‘dirty’ war against black people in the United States. My additional questions about the Manjapra reading are: what does Black Ghosts of Empire add to the history of the Haitian Revolution (with regard to Trouillot’s Silencing the Past)? What does Manjapra mean by the term ‘the long death’? What is ‘global Jim Crow’? And, how does Manjapra redefine the meaning of the word emancipation?