The Kidnapping Club

Book cover of The Kidnapping Club: Wall Street, Slavery, and Resistance on the Eve of the Civil War

Book description

Although slavery was outlawed in the northern states in 1827, the illegal slave trade continued in the one place modern readers would least expect, the streets and ports of America's great northern metropolis: New York City.

In The Kidnapping Club, historian Jonathan Daniel Wells takes readers to a rapidly changing…

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American history

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Kidnapping Club as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Anthony Paul Griffin

Author

I loved this book because the author – a professor at the University of Michigan – honestly addresses a tough subject when informing the reader about the North’s benefit from slavery, a benefit which caused a forever compromise on the subject, leading to the Civil War.

I was shocked when I read Wall Street’s profits were so great it wanted to secede from the union and recreate itself as a separate nation-state on the eve of the Civil War in order to continue trading with both the North and South.

The professor does a wonderful job with documentation, particularly how…

From Anthony's list on history books which weave a wonderful tale, while making us laugh, scream, cry and think, while we are bowing and saying bravo at the same time!.