"A Literary and Legal History of Slavery in the Anglophone Atlantic, 1688-1818." Marsh helps us see the English, and also American, transatlantic slave trade as the clash between English and African political and legal thought. She focuses especially on the way the American form of racial slavery is a product of conflicts dating back to the English Civil War (1642-51) when Charles I lost his crown. English slave ownership took off against the background of a struggle between divine right absolutism and populist democracy. Understanding more of the history of this moral, political, and spiritual divide expands our understanding of America's peculiarly compartmentalized opposing revolutionary goals: glorious freedom for some while maintenance of horrific bondage for others. Reading Aphra Behn, Daniel Defoe, Olaudah Equiano, Benjamin Banneker, Jane Austen, and Mary Shelley alongside statues, slave codes, charters, and legal decisions, Marsh exposes deep competing ideas that continue to drag down our hopes for true human-centered democratic government. Oxford University Press. 2026. Hb, Dj. NEW. Special sale price $90.00