This is a vitally important contribution to the history both of slavery and the slave trade, and political thought. It renders accessible to the modern reader two important late eighteenth century essays by early abolitionist writers. One, Thomas Clarkson was aptly described by Eric Williams as one of the few true friends of the black race, the other, Quobna Ottobah Cugoano, was one of the first Africans to speak on the subject of slavery and racial equality. It is tremendously important that an American publisher is bringing out these *European* contributions to the fight against slavery and for racial equality as all too often Americans forget that the struggle was fought on the other side of the Atlantic and in the West Indies as well.

Cugoano's contribution is of especial importance as practically the first African attack on the slave trade, and one of the first presentations of a political theory of racial equality in the modern world.