Andrew Pearson – författare

The eleven forts constructed by the Romans along the British coast between Branchester in Norfolk and Portchester in Hampshire have traditionally been referred to as the 'Forts of the Saxon Shore'. However, recent research suggests that these sites may have served as military ports rather then as a coherent defensive system to deter barbarian invaders.In this rounded study of the subject, Andrew Pearson draws on all the latest evidence available. After looking at the surviving monuments themselves, he describes how, in the third century AD, they came to be built and how they fitted into the overall Roman coastal system. He then goes on to examine the construction process itself, calculating the demand for raw materials, transport and manpower, and demonstrates how these requirements could have been met.Key to Dr. Pearson's interpretation of the primary purpose of the forts is an assessment of the third-century coastline. The physical setting of each monument in relation to the sea has greatly changed since the Roman period: today only Portchester retains a situation similar to that of ancient times. The author also examines how the forts were occupied and the part they played in their local, regional and provincial economies. Finally, he charts their decline and eventual disuse in the late fourth and early fifth centuries.This original study will be welcomed by anyone with an interest in Roman Britain.

This book is an examination of the island of St Helena’s involvement in slave trade abolition. After the establishment of a British Vice-Admiralty court there in 1840, this tiny and remote South Atlantic colony became the hub of naval activity in the region. It served as a base for the Royal Navy’s West Africa Squadron, and as such became the principal receiving depot for intercepted slave ships and their human cargo. During the middle decades of the nineteenth century over 25,000 ‘recaptive’ or ‘liberated’ Africans were landed at the island. Here, in embryonic refugee camps, these former slaves lived and died, genuine freedom still a distant prospect.This book provides an account and evaluation of this episode. It begins by charting the political contexts which drew St Helena into the fray of abolition, and considers how its involvement, at times, came to occupy those at the highest levels of British politics. In the main, however, it focuses on St Helena itself, and examines how matters played out on the ground. The study utilises documentary sources (many previously untouched) which tell the stories of those whose lives became bound up in the compass of anti-slavery, far from London and long after the Abolition Act of 1807. It puts the Black experience at the foreground, aiming to bring a voice to a forgotten people, many of whom died in limbo, in a place that was physically and conceptually between freedom and slavery.

This book is an examination of the island of St Helena’s involvement in slave trade abolition. After the establishment of a British Vice-Admiralty court there in 1840, this tiny and remote South Atlantic colony became the hub of naval activity in the region. It served as a base for the Royal Navy’s West Africa Squadron, and as such became the principal receiving depot for intercepted slave ships and their human cargo. During the middle decades of the nineteenth century over 25,000 ‘recaptive’ or ‘liberated’ Africans were landed at the island. Here, in embryonic refugee camps, these former slaves lived and died, genuine freedom still a distant prospect.This book provides an account and evaluation of this episode. It begins by charting the political contexts which drew St Helena into the fray of abolition, and considers how its involvement, at times, came to occupy those at the highest levels of British politics. In the main, however, it focuses on St Helena itself, and examines how matters played out on the ground. The study utilises documentary sources (many previously untouched) which tell the stories of those whose lives became bound up in the compass of anti-slavery, far from London and long after the Abolition Act of 1807. It puts the Black experience at the foreground, aiming to bring a voice to a forgotten people, many of whom died in limbo, in a place that was physically and conceptually between freedom and slavery.