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The Empire of Necessity: Slavery, Freedom, and Deception in the New World Hardcover – January 14, 2014
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From the acclaimed author of Fordlandia, the story of a remarkable slave rebellion that illuminates America's struggle with slavery and freedom during the Age of Revolution and beyond
One morning in 1805, off a remote island in the South Pacific, Captain Amasa Delano, a New England seal hunter, climbed aboard a distressed Spanish ship carrying scores of West Africans he thought were slaves. They weren't. Having earlier seized control of the vessel and slaughtered most of the crew, they were staging an elaborate ruse, acting as if they were humble servants. When Delano, an idealistic, anti-slavery republican, finally realized the deception, he responded with explosive violence.
Drawing on research on four continents, The Empire of Necessity explores the multiple forces that culminated in this extraordinary event―an event that already inspired Herman Melville's masterpiece Benito Cereno. Now historian Greg Grandin, with the gripping storytelling that was praised in Fordlandia, uses the dramatic happenings of that day to map a new transnational history of slavery in the Americas, capturing the clash of peoples, economies, and faiths that was the New World in the early 1800s.
- Print length384 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherMetropolitan Books
- Publication dateJanuary 14, 2014
- Dimensions6.43 x 1.43 x 9.43 inches
- ISBN-100805094539
- ISBN-13978-0805094534
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Editorial Reviews
From Booklist
Review
“Engrossing, well researched and beautifully written . . . A rigorously sourced work of scholarship with a suspenseful narrative structure that boomerangs back and forth through time. Grandin has delivered a page-turner. You read it as if it were a thriller novel by Scott Turow or Lee Child.” ―Chicago Tribune
“The Empire of Necessity is scholarship at its best. Greg Grandin's deft penetration into the marrow of the slave industry is compelling, brilliant and necessary.” ―Toni Morrison
“Engaging, richly informed . . . Mr. Grandin ranges so freely through history that his book has a zigzagging course, like a schooner tacking constantly with the wind. But the voyage he takes us on is hardly directionless. . . . he describes his unsettling panorama in a restrained manner, avoiding exaggeration and allowing facts--many of them horrific--to tell the story. In doing so, he has produced a quietly powerful account that Melville himself would have admired.” ―Wall Street Journal
“A great and moving story.” ―Washington Post
“Elegant . . . a wonder of power, precision and sheer reading pleasure . . . Grandin takes readers on a tour of the hell of the slave trade, a tour so revelatory and compelling, we readers, unlike Captain Delano, can't fail to see the truth before our eyes.” ―Maureen Corrigan, NPR's "Fresh Air"
“Powerful . . . a remarkable feat of research . . . a significant contribution to the largely impossible yet imperative effort to retrieve some trace of the countless lives that slavery consumed.” ―Andrew Delbanco, the New York Times Book Review
“An exciting and illuminating narrative . . . Grandin's pen is exquisite, the descriptions are lively and sensuous. But he is also deeply reflective. The book has import that extends beyond the interest of the story.” ―San Francisco Chronicle
“Remarkable . . . superbly argued and richly detailed . . . Grandin's skill is that he can find metaphors that subtly reflect the vital dichotomies that pervade the American psyche.” ―The Guardian (UK)
“I can't say enough good things about The Empire of Necessity. It's one of the best books I've read in a decade. It should be essential reading not just for those interested in the African slave trade, but for anyone hoping to understand the commercial enterprise that built North and South America.” ―Victor Lavalle, Bookforum
“A remarkable story, one that unravels the American encounter with slavery in ways uncommonly subtle and deeply provocative.” ―The American Scholar
“Fascinating . . . a gripping, lavishly researched account of high seas drama . . . compulsively readable.” ―The Christian Science Monitor
“Grandin writes with the skills of a fine novelist … I am thrilled and amazed by this inventive, audacious, passionate volume.” ―H. Bruce Franklin, Los Angeles Review of Books
“Fascinating and engaging.” ―Seattle Times
“In this multifaceted masterpiece, Greg Grandin excavates the relentlessly fascinating history of a slave revolt to mine the enduring dilemmas of politics and identity in a New World where the Age of Freedom was also the Age of Slavery. This is that rare book in which the drama of the action and the drama of ideas are equally measured, a work of history and of literary reflection that is as urgent as it is timely.” ―Philip Gourevitch, co-author of the The Ballad of Abu Ghraib
“Greg Grandin has done it again. Starting with a single dramatic encounter in the South Pacific he has shown us an entire world: of multiple continents, terrible bondage and the dream of freedom. This is also a story of how one episode changed the lives of a sea captain and a great writer from the other end of the earth. An extraordinary tale, beautifully told.” ―Adam Hochschild, author of King Leopold’s Ghost
“Rooted in an event known primarily through the genius of Herman Melville's transcendent Benito Cereno, The Empire of Necessity is a stunning work of research done all over the rims of two oceans, as well as beautiful, withering storytelling. This is a harrowing story of Muslim Africans trekking across South America, and ultimately a unique window on to the nature of the slave trade, the maritime worlds of the early nineteenth century, the lives lived in-between slavery and freedom all over the Americas, and even the ocean-inspired imagination of Melville. Grandin is a master of grand history with new insights.” ―David W. Blight, author of Frederick Douglass: A Life (forthcoming)
“Greg Grandin is one of the best of a new generation of historians who have rediscovered the art of writing for both serious scholars and general readers. This may be his best book yet. The Empire of Necessity is a work of astonishing power, eloquence and suspense -- a genuine tour de force.” ―Debby Applegate, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Most Famous Man in America: The Biography of Henry Ward Beecher
About the Author
Product details
- Publisher : Metropolitan Books; First Edition (January 14, 2014)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 384 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0805094539
- ISBN-13 : 978-0805094534
- Item Weight : 1.3 pounds
- Dimensions : 6.43 x 1.43 x 9.43 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #1,484,415 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,229 in South American History (Books)
- #5,286 in Discrimination & Racism
- #52,719 in United States History (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Greg Grandin is the author of Fordlandia, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award. A Professor of History at New York University, Grandin has published a number of other award-winning books, including Empire's Workshop, The Last Colonial Massacre, and The Blood of Guatemala.
Toni Morrison called Grandin's new work, The Empire of Necessity, "compelling, brilliant and necessary." Released in early 2014, the book narrates the history of a slave-ship revolt that inspired Herman Melville's other masterpiece, Benito Cereno. Philip Gourevitch describes it as a "rare book in which the drama of the action and the drama of ideas are equally measured, a work of history and of literary reflection that is as urgent as it is timely."
Grandin has served on the United Nations Truth Commission investigating the Guatemalan Civil War and has written for the Los Angeles Times, The Nation, The New Statesman, the Guardian, the London Review of Books, and The New York Times. He received his BA from Brooklyn College, CUNY, in 1992 and his PhD from Yale in 1999. He has been a guest on Democracy Now!, The Charlie Rose Show, and the Chris Hayes Show.
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The author starts from the historic slaves rebellion on the slaver ship Tryal described by Hermann Melville in his "Benito Cerreno" and from there pulls all the threads he can.
He artfully retraces the path of the slaves involved from their shipment from Africa, through their capture by the French pirate "Citoyen" Mordeille and their sale in South America, their journey through the continent and across the Andes until their rebellion on the Tryal on their way to Lima.
Greg Grandin masterly describes Connecticut's Amasa Delano's journey as a sealer, massacring the hapless mammals by the thousands in south pacific islands until his arraignment of the Tryal (I will not spoil the details here).
All this bathed in exquisitely depicted cultures, with the philosophical effects of slavery on the various ones he describes - be them in South America, Spain, England, the thirteen colonies or later the United States. He explores for us the influence of the French and Haitian revolutions, the demise of the Spanish control, even to the influence of Islam on some of the salves sent to the Americas or through 770 years of Arabic presence in Spain.
This book is a page turner, both a collection of great stories intertwined in a magnificent fresco and a well of culture and philosophy, all written in a very clear and compelling style.
Very important to me, Greg Grandin supports all his narrative with extensive notes on his researches in archives on four continents (both Americas, Europe and Africa). This denotes the most serious of analysis - that it remains so pleasant to read testifies to the author's skills.
A note about the Kindle edition, which is the one I read.
It is hard to jump back and forth between the text and the notes, and I essentially did not because of that fact. The original book also contains interesting illustrations which appear in the Kindle edition, but I have no way to know where they are located in the paper form of the book - in the Kindle edition they are all collated right after the main text - this is quite a pain as they would support the text very well were they be properly placed.
All in all, even in the Kindle edition I rate this book a deserved 5 stars.
Top reviews from other countries
紙の本の長さ: 378 ページ
出版社: Metropolitan Books; First版 (2014/1/14)
ASIN: B00EGJ7KX6 のレビュー。
ハーマン・メルヴィルの中編小説、あるいは長い短編『ベニート・セレーノ』(岩波文庫では『幽霊船』、光文社古典新訳文庫では『漂流船』)の元になった事件を扱ったもの。メルヴィルの翻訳では『バートルビー』といっしょに書籍になっている場合が多く、そっちが有名なようだが、わたしはこの作品が一番衝撃的だった。『モビー・ディック』も翻訳でよんでいるけれど、衝撃を感じる以前に疲れてしまいますね。
チリ沖で、ニューイングランド(独立直後のアメリカ合衆国ですよ)の船長アマサ・デラーノが、漂流状態の船と遭遇する。水や食料を準備して船に乗り込んでみると、憔悴した船長ベニート・セラーノが忠実な黒人奴隷に介護されている。アマサ・デラーノは、セラーノから嵐や疫病でオフィサーがみな死亡したことや、船の現状を聞く。その間にも忠実な奴隷たちは、かいがいしくセレーノの世話をしている。船上で半日すごし、自分の船に帰ろうとしたとき、セラーノは甲板から飛び降りアマサのボートに飛び乗る。実は、黒人たちは船を乗っ取り、船長のセラーノを脅迫していたのだ。
メルヴィルの小説では、黒人の首謀者のほうがここで死ぬのだが、現実の事件では、その後反乱奴隷たちが捉えられる。本書は現実のアメリカ人アマサ、スペイン人セラーノ、黒人奴隷たち、三者の来歴と事件後の消息を丹念に調査した歴史叙述である。
アマゾンのサンプルで読める部分では、「自由意志とはなんぞや」とか「奴隷の人間性とは」とか、メルヴィル作品への批評が多いように見える。しかし本書全体では、上記三者の生い立ち、当時の国際関係(つまり、どこの国がどこの国へ奴隷を輸出してよいか。海上で捕獲した奴隷は誰の所有になるかなどなど)、宗教(つまり、北アメリカのクェーカー教徒、スペインのカトリック、アフリカのムスリム)、アルゼンチンの皮革産業、アザラシ猟、税関や裁判権のこと、などさまざまな事柄が解説される。そして背景のことなる三者が会合したのが、チリ沖の小島なのである。
そういうわけで、本書に注目するのはメルヴィル作品に興味がある人が多いだろうけれど、交易史や社会経済史に興味がある方におすすめです。シドニー・ミンツやケネス・ポメランツの著作に親しんでいる方、日本では川北稔などの本を読んでいる方なら、おおーと驚く内容を楽しめるでしょう。自由と平等とは、自由に奴隷狩りをして、平等に輸出入できる権利であったのです。
もっとも、いまでも、勤勉なプロテスタントが資本主義の土台を作ったなんてタワゴトを信じている人はこんな本読まないでしょうが。
メルヴィルに関しての部分、作家論と作品論も全体の2割ほどあります。この部分もわたしはおもしろかった。この短編、20世紀の中頃までは、「邪悪なもの」「権限的な悪を描いたもの」といった抽象的な批評が大部分だったそうです。奴隷が反乱するのはあったりまえじゃねえか、知性ある者が抑圧に応酬するのは当然だ! という評価が生まれたのはアメリカでの公民権運動の時代だったそうです。ちょうどコンラッドの『闇の奥』が分かったような分からないような批評が大部分で、舞台がベルギー領コンゴでアフリカ人を殺しまくっていた時代の小説として読まれ始めた時期といっしょだというわけだ。
kindle版、索引にリンクなし。写真はpaperwhiteでも支障なく見られる。やっぱり地図が見にくい。
Revealing but rather incoherently told through stories on different characters, difficult to remember (names !) and follow.
I would not buy it again.





