About this item
"Tremendously impressive, the result of a lifetime of learning. Historical writing at its best." - Marcus Rediker, author of The Slave Ship. A history of 19th century slavery in the US, Brazil and Cuba from a critically acclaimed historian of slavery in the Americas. The Reckoning offers the first rounded account of the rise and fall of the Second Slavery - largescale plantation slavery in nineteenth-century Brazil, Cuba and the US South. Robin Blackburn shows how a fusion of industrial capitalism and transatlantic war and revolution turbo-charged racial oppression and the westwards expansion of the United States.. Blackburn identifies the new territories, new victims and new battle cries of the Second Slavery. He emphasises the role of financial credit in the spread of plantation agriculture, traces the connections between slavery and the US Civil War, and asks why Brazil threw off Portuguese rule whereas Cuba became one of imperial Spain's final outposts.
About the Author
Robin Blackburn McBride is a Canadian novelist, poet and coach. For over twenty years she worked as a teacher in Toronto, and before that, as an actress. Robin holds degrees in English, Drama and Education from the University of Toronto. Her first novel, The Shining Fragments, was published by Guernica Editions in 2018 and recognized as an Editors' Choice book by the Historical Novel Society in North America. Her self-help book, Birdlight: Freeing Your Authentic Creativity, became an Amazon Best Seller in 2016 and has since been released as an Audible audiobook. In 2002, Guernica published a volume of her poetry, In Green. Robin has an enduring passion for the arts, local history, and intergenerational family stories. While doing research for The Shining Fragments, she made two trips to Northern Ireland where some of her ancestors lived before coming to Canada. Beyond writing, Robin's projects have included drawing, painting, collage and gardening. She is an activist for social justice and environmental causes - in particular, the preservation of old growth forests. Robin lives with her husband and their cat in Gatineau, Quebec, where she is at work on a sequel to The Shining Fragments. Meet Robin on Instagram at
