Why did I love this book?
Proponents of capitalism assert that human nature is constant, propelled by an unquenchable pursuit of self-interest. Historians suggest that rampant individualism that undergirds the entrepreneurial spirit is a product of the Enlightenment’s quest to displace communal values associated with religion and tradition.
In this brilliant novel, which shared the 1992 Booker Prize with The English Patient, Unsworth traces the historical emergence of the profit motive, “which justifies everything, sanctifies all purposes” including multiple modes of dehumanization such as involuntary servitude and slavery.
The searing depictions of the conditions of labor on a slave ship and the brutal commodification of flesh in the African slave trade eviscerate capitalism’s benign self-image and raise powerful questions about the morality of an economic system in which the wealth of the few impoverishes the vast majority.
2 authors picked Sacred Hunger as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
Winner of the Booker Prize
Liverpool, 1752. William Kemp has lost a fortune in cotton speculation, and must recoup his losses if his son is to marry the wealthy woman whom he loves. His last resort is a slave ship, one that will take him to the Guinea coast, where he will trade for human cargo, then embark on the infamous Middle Passage. When disease ravages the ship and the African prisoners mutiny, William’s profit-seeking venture falls apart. Slaves and sailors alike will join together to found a utopian community on the coast of Florida—not knowing that the vengeful, younger…