Ryan Hanley – författare

The first-ever biography of the ultra-radical thinker Robert Wedderburn, from his native Jamaica to metropole London, by an award-winning historianRobert Wedderburn (1762–1834/5) was one of the most charismatic, irascible, and radical intellectuals of the eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Atlantic world. Born to an enslaved woman and a slavemaster in Jamaica, and moving in the radical working-class circles of London, Wedderburn made his name as a fiery political writer and orator—before dying, forgotten, in poverty.Among the few abolitionists bold enough to publicly call for the enslaved in the British West Indies to rise up and violently overthrow their colonial “masters,” Wedderburn was also among the most outspoken and—amid an increasingly repressive British establishment—dangerous advocates for domestic political reform and working-class rights.From award-winning scholar Ryan Hanley, this is the first full-length biography of a man increasingly recognized as central to Black radical political thought in the Revolutionary Atlantic. Tapping newly rediscovered sources, Hanley details Wedderburn’s extraordinary public and private life, explores the central influence of enslaved women on his political ideas, and offers fresh analysis of his contributions to British political thought and activism.

The first full-length historical study of pre-abolition black British writing, this book challenges established narratives of eighteenth-century black history that focus almost exclusively on slavery and abolition. Ryan Hanley expands our perspectives to encompass the often neglected but important black writers of the time, and highlights their contribution to politics, culture, and the arts. He considers the lives and works of contemporary black literary celebrities alongside largely forgotten evangelical authors and political radicals to uncover how they came to produce such diverse and powerful work. By navigating the social, religious, political and professional networks that surrounded these authors and their writing, he also reveals that black intellectuals were never confined to the peripheries of British culture. From the decks of Royal Navy ships to the drawing rooms of country houses, from the pub to the pulpit, black writers, and the work they produced, helped to build modern Britain.

The first full-length historical study of pre-abolition black British writing, this book challenges established narratives of eighteenth-century black history that focus almost exclusively on slavery and abolition. Ryan Hanley expands our perspectives to encompass the often neglected but important black writers of the time, and highlights their contribution to politics, culture, and the arts. He considers the lives and works of contemporary black literary celebrities alongside largely forgotten evangelical authors and political radicals to uncover how they came to produce such diverse and powerful work. By navigating the social, religious, political and professional networks that surrounded these authors and their writing, he also reveals that black intellectuals were never confined to the peripheries of British culture. From the decks of Royal Navy ships to the drawing rooms of country houses, from the pub to the pulpit, black writers, and the work they produced, helped to build modern Britain.

The first full-length historical study of pre-abolition black British writing, this book challenges established narratives of eighteenth-century black history that focus almost exclusively on slavery and abolition. Ryan Hanley expands our perspectives to encompass the often neglected but important black writers of the time, and highlights their contribution to politics, culture, and the arts. He considers the lives and works of contemporary black literary celebrities alongside largely forgotten evangelical authors and political radicals to uncover how they came to produce such diverse and powerful work. By navigating the social, religious, political and professional networks that surrounded these authors and their writing, he also reveals that black intellectuals were never confined to the peripheries of British culture. From the decks of Royal Navy ships to the drawing rooms of country houses, from the pub to the pulpit, black writers, and the work they produced, helped to build modern Britain.

Transatlantic slavery, just like the abolition movements, affected every space and community in Britain, from Cornwall to the Clyde, from dockyard alehouses to country estates. Today, its financial, architectural and societal legacies remain, scattered across the country in museums and memorials, philanthropic institutions and civic buildings, empty spaces and unmarked graves. Just as they did in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, British people continue to make sense of this ‘national sin’ by looking close to home, drawing on local histories and myths to negotiate their relationship to the distant horrors of the ‘Middle Passage’, and the Caribbean plantation. For the first time, this collection brings together localised case studies of Britain’s history and memory of its involvement in the transatlantic slave trade, and slavery. These essays, ranging in focus from eighteenth-century Liverpool to twenty-first-century rural Cambridgeshire, from racist ideologues to Methodist preachers, examine how transatlantic slavery impacted on, and continues to impact, people and places across Britain.

Transatlantic slavery, just like the abolition movements, affected every space and community in Britain, from Cornwall to the Clyde, from dockyard alehouses to country estates. Today, its financial, architectural and societal legacies remain, scattered across the country in museums and memorials, philanthropic institutions and civic buildings, empty spaces and unmarked graves. Just as they did in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, British people continue to make sense of this ‘national sin’ by looking close to home, drawing on local histories and myths to negotiate their relationship to the distant horrors of the ‘Middle Passage’, and the Caribbean plantation. For the first time, this collection brings together localised case studies of Britain’s history and memory of its involvement in the transatlantic slave trade, and slavery. These essays, ranging in focus from eighteenth-century Liverpool to twenty-first-century rural Cambridgeshire, from racist ideologues to Methodist preachers, examine how transatlantic slavery impacted on, and continues to impact, people and places across Britain.