Why read Complicity?

Book cover of Complicity: How the North Promoted, Prolonged, and Profited from Slavery

Book description

A startling and superbly researched book demythologizing the North’s role in American slavery

“The hardest question is what to do when human rights give way to profits. . . . Complicity is a story of the skeletons that remain in this nation’s closet.”—San Francisco Chronicle

The North’s profit from—indeed, dependence…

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American history

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Why read it?

2 authors picked Complicity as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Debra Bruno

Author

Before I read this book, I had no idea just how much slavery’s economic benefits to the North allowed so many individuals to look the other way. This was the first book that underlined for me why all Americans, Northerners, and Southerners, need to own and understand our history.

The chapter “Plunder for Pianos” on the ivory trade and piano keys forever changed my sense of how the Triangle Trade operated.

From Debra's list on slavery that will surprise you.

Dennis L. Peterson

Author

Three veteran journalists without a regional axe to grind but only a desire to find and communicate the historical facts present a compelling argument that slavery was a national, not merely a Southern, problem. Their findings are truly an inconvenient truth that anti-Southern historians must face if they sincerely want to be objective chroniclers of our nation’s history.

From Dennis' list on little-known aspects of the Confederate era.