1. A Far Cry From Africa by Derek Walcott
The trans-Atlantic slave trade was the largest long-distance coerced movement of people in history and, prior to the mid-nineteenth century, formed the major demographic well-spring for the re-peopling of the Americas following the collapse of the Amerindian population. Cumulatively, as late as 1820, nearly four Africans had crossed the Atlantic for every European, and, given the differences in the sex ratios between European and African migrant streams, about four out of every five females that traversed the Atlantic were from Africa. From the late fifteenth century, the Atlantic O...
Kipling was not by far the most vociferous of the jingoists; having been somewhat of an outsider all for his life, he showed great sympathy for those whose lives were wasted in the expansion of the empire, and criticized the Imperial machinery that used them. ...