Paperback: The Trader, the Owner, the Slave, by James Walvin

Through three individuals, Walvin explores the rise and fall of the British slave trade. John Newton, who was a slave trader from 1748 to 1752, wrote "Amazing Grace" in 1772, but it was another decade before he could admit his misdeeds. Thomas Thistlewood was a slave owner responsible for terrible cruelty and depravity, though he was a "bookish man" and a dedicated gardener. The slave is Olaudah Equiano, another bookish man who was kidnapped in England and enslaved in Montserrat. In this disturbing but gripping book, Walvin explains the British volte-face on slavery.