An admirable study and a fine addition to the exciting new scholarship that has been chronicling the profund transformation wrought during the transition from slavery to freedom in the Americas.—New West Indian Guide

This book has a number of strengths. Its explication of the actual workings of the compensation award, including how the value of slave property was determined, is clear and lucid. Its unraveling of the complex financial dealings between West Indian planters and British sugar merchants is exemplary. And its analysis of the 'macro-economic' effects of the compensation award upon the West Indian economies is persuasive. . . . This study deals with so many important issues to scholars of New World slavery and emancipation that it is well worth sitting down and grappling with.—The Americas

Butler breaks new ground. . . . This is a painstakingly researched, clearly written, and valuable contribution to British colonial history.—American Historical Review

This is an important book that adds considerably to our knowledge of the tangled history of British abolitionism as well as of the economic, social, and political history of the British West Indies.—Colonial Latin American Historical Review

Carefully crafted and meticulously researched, [this] study illuminates the ties that bound planters to business interests in Britain and makes a sound contribution to current debates about transitions from slavery to freedom in the Americas.—David Barry Gaspar, Duke University

A clearly argued work that has finally indicated the complex array of forces endemic to the emancipation process as imperial economics and politics in action.—Hilary McD. Beckles, University of the West Indies