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Though the Heavens May Fall

The Landmark Trial That Led to the End of Human Slavery

Contributors

By Steven M. Wise

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Price

$21.99

Price

$28.99 CAD

Format

Trade Paperback

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Trade Paperback $21.99 $28.99 CAD

This item is a preorder. Your payment method will be charged immediately, and the product is expected to ship on or around January 3, 2006. This date is subject to change due to shipping delays beyond our control.

How one man’s case changed the trajectory of slavery and the global abolition movement forever.

The case of James Somerset, an escaped slave, in June of 1772 in London’s Westminster Hall was a decisive turning point in human history. Steven Wise has uncovered fascinating new revelations in this case, which statesmen of the time threatened would bring the economy of the British Empire to a crashing halt. In a gripping, hour-by-hour narrative of the trial and the inflamed participants, Wise leads the reader to the extraordinary and unexpected decision by the great conservative judge, Lord Mansfield, which led to the United States’ own abolition movement. As the case drew to a close, and defenders of slavery pleaded with him to maintain the system, Mansfield’s reply has resounded down through more than two centuries: “Let Justice be done, though the Heavens may fall.”

On Sale
Jan 3, 2006
Page Count
320 pages
Publisher
Da Capo Press
ISBN-13
9780306814501

Steven M. Wise

About the Author

Steven M. Wise, J.D., has practiced animal law for over twenty years and has taught at the Harvard, Vermont, and John Marshall law schools. He is President of the Center for the Expansion of Fundamental Rights, which he founded in 1995. The author of Rattling the Cage, praised by Cass Sunstein as “an impassioned, fascinating, and in many ways startling book” (New York Times Book Review), and Drawing the Line, which Nature called “provocative and disturbing,” he has been profiled nationally by such publications as the New York Times, the Washington Post, and Time magazine.

Learn more about this author