The beginning of the end of slavery

Sometimes the slightest crack in an otherwise solid foundation can trigger the wholesale collapse of an edifice. Such was the case with the trans-Atlantic slave trade, a practice that began in the 16th century but came to an abrupt end 300 years later. As Siddharth Kara demonstrates in The Zorg, his captivating and often stomach-churning account of a slave ship’s tragic misadventures on the high seas, a single event can give rise to titanic social change.

“The Zorg,” Kara argues, “showed the world for the first time that the Atlantic slave trade was a morally bankrupt system of greed and violence that unleashed incalculable misery on the people of Africa.” The exposure of the cruel depredations of the ship’s crew and the execrable suffering of