Although virtually unknown in the UK, Capitalism and Slavery has never been out of print in the US since its first publication by the University of North Carolina Press. It is now on its third edition and between that and the second edition, just a few years ago, has sold 40,000 copies. William St. Clair, 'The Grand Slave Emporium: Cape Coast Castle and the British slave trade' Profile Books 2006 Something about the dignity and courage of Mende Nazar as she recounts her appalling story grabs hold of your heart, allowing you to read on when it is almost unbearable. This book is roughly split into three parts. The first part details her childhood in the Nuba Mountains. While Mende describes it positively, there were definitely some heartbreaking scenes here, such as her experiences with female genital mutilation. However, as a whole, Mende's family seems so full of love and warmth and hearing stories of her childhood was really interesting. The second part describes her abduction and work in Khartoum. Finally, the last part talks about London and her eventual escape. His daughter described how a letter he wrote to that effect “dropped like a bomb in 10 Downing Street”.

Williams Connell is the founding curator of the Eric Williams Memorial Collection Research Library, Archives and Museum at the University of the West Indies in Trinidad and Tobago. Speaking from her home in Miami, Florida, she said, “To think that almost 80 years after it was published, Britain is finally discovering Capitalism and Slavery is amazing to me. So Slave: My True Story is an autobiography of Mende Nazer. Born in the Nuba Mountains of Sudan, when she was about 12, she was kidnapped by Arab slave raiders and sold to a wealthy family in Khartoum. Eventually, she was taken to London and manages to escape, after seven years of slavery. Mary Prince, 'The History of Mary Prince, a West Indian Slave' ed. Sarah Salih, Penguin Classics 2000 Paul Lovejoy, 'Transformations in Slavery: A history of slavery in Africa' Cambridge University Press And where are the limits of international involvement? Mende was literally enslaved to a Sudanese diplomat. There's a scene where someone tells Mende that in the UK you can't work and not get paid and this surprises her. At what point does culture relativity stop?According to Wikipedia, there are between 21 million to 46 million people enslaved today. Which is a pretty large margin but also a very very big number regardless. My original intention was to find a book that would describe Sudan positively. I fear I've failed at that. Slave is the true story of Mende Nazer, a Sudanese woman whose childhood ended when she was captured and enslaved around age 12. One thing that made Mende’s story particularly stand out to me is that we are about the same age. Her slavery did not take place in the huts and villages of Sudan, but in the relatively modern city of Khartoum, where her well-to-do captors had most of the modern conveniences that we do (electricity, washer/dryer, stove/oven, etc). The National Archives also has a slavery section, which is a portal to research guides, digitised documents and teaching resources on Britain's slave trade and the abolition movement. Mende eventually came of age, started to attract the attention of adult male visitors to the household, then was "traded" to a family in London. She eventually escaped and was granted amnesty within the UK with aide from fellow Sudanese and British supporters. One of those supporters, Damien Lewis, is the co-author of the novel. Both he and Mende dedicate their time and resources supporting human rights organizations and government assemblies. She has since learned that her parents survived the raid and are alive near her village and communicates with them periodically. Unfortunately with her sensationalized trial, publicized battle for political asylum in the United Kingdom and the release of the novel, came noteriety that prohibits her from returning to the Sudan. Thus Mende's ultimate plea for the abolition of slavery everywhere is coupled by a simple desire to see her family again.

Ottobah Cugoano, ed. Vincent Carretta, 'Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evils of Slavery' (Penguin Classics 1999) Melinda Elder, 'The Slave Trade and the Economic Development of 18th Century Lancaster Keele University Press 1992 I wish there was more about how she got used to living in the UK because that scene with the bus was really interesting. The contentious core of the book by Williams – who was the first prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago for 25 years until his death in 1981 – was that the abolition of the slave trade was not born out of humanitarian wishes but of economic necessity. To think that, almost 80 years after it was published, Britain is finally discovering Capitalism and Slavery is amazing Erica Williams Connellthis freedom was a terrifying thing. I was captured when I was still a child. I spent my teenage years and my early adulthood in slavery. For all that time, I had no freedom. I was a non-person. I didn't really exist. (311) Eventually she escaped and they were caught. But not only got away with it but sued a newspaper for saying they were slavers instead of legitimately employing an au pair (who was brought in on false papers). The newspaper did not investigate Mende's claims (pressure from the UK government?) and paid out. The diplomats had previously been charged with slavery but that time claimed diplomatic immunity to escape prosecution. It was a way of life for them. Why pay for an au pair, a nanny, a cook and a cleaner when you can enslave a child and instead of regular pay cheques, give her regular beatings. Both in their various ways, ensure compliance. The next portion describes her capture, abuse, and rape, and then her being sold as a slave to a respected family in Sudan’s capital. There she worked for seven years, suffering physical, verbal, and emotional abuse before being sold to her “master’s” relatives, who ironically worked for the Sudanese embassy in London. London is where Mende escaped to freedom, but even there such an escape was an unlikely possibility.

To conclude, Slave: My True Story is not an easy book to read. It's upsetting and it's unpleasant. However, this is also a remarkable tale of a brave young woman and a first hand account of a huge problem. For the first time since I'd been captured, I was sitting on a chair in a living room being treated like everyone else. The strange thing was that I didn't really like it. I'd spent so many years being treated like a slave and that's what I'd become used to. (259) Mende Nazer lost her childhood at age twelve, when she was sold into slavery. It all began one horrific night in 1993, when Arab raiders swept through her Nuba village, murdering the adults and rounding up thirty-one children, including Mende.There have been many rebuttals and affirmations of what has become known the Williams Thesis since it was first published in 1944, and in answer to these, Williams Connell quoted from the foreword of the recent third edition, by William Darity of Duke University in North Carolina, who wrote: “Although scholars of the British Industrial Revolution generally have ignored Williams’s proposition, they only can continue to do so by placing their own intellectual integrity at peril.” Escaped but not free. The Brtitish government would not give her asylum saying that forced labour did not constitute a threat to her human rights. No doubt pressure from the Islamic Fundamentalist government of Sudan. It took two years, the fake court case from her dreadful owners and her book to be published in Germany the ensuing storm of publicity making it difficult for the British to send her home so then she was granted the right to stay. Emma Christopher, 'Slave ships, sailors and their captive cargoes 1730-1807' Cambridge University Press 2006 One of my professors is convinced megacities are the future. Even today, London's budget is bigger than several countries. Such mega-cities are fascinating because they are so international. There are so many cultures represented everywhere. Reading this book was the first time I had considered that international cities also import the troubles of their residents. It makes me think about how our world is so connected, slavery in Sudan also means slavery in London just as covid-19 in China can easily mean covid-19 everywhere else.