Book reviews: Atlas of the Transatlantic Slave Trade | Sweden, the Swastika and Stalin | Amelia Earhart

Published on Tuesday 18 January 2011 14:15

Atlas of the Transatlantic Slave Trade by David Eltis and David Richardson (Yale, £30) *****

"Great numbers make quite a business of this buying and selling human flesh," wrote escaped slave and abolitionist campaigner Mahommah G Baquaqua in 1854. There's no way now of putting faces to these "numbers"; still less to the millions of men, women and children who were their living, breathing, suffering stock in trade. Yet it was a trade, and organised as such. This extraordinary atlas maps every aspect of the "triangular trade" – participating nations; places of origin; ports, prices, profits; voyage lengths and mortality rates for victims shipped from specific regions. Beautifully produced, with period images and contemporary quotations, this is in a work of commemoration, but the best memorial, the authors clearly feel, is the historic truth.

Sweden, the Swastika and Stalin

by John Gilmour

(Edinburgh, 24.99) ****

Neutrality was no soft option for a Sweden caught between two aggressive totalitarian powers: it felt like "living in front of the muzzle of a loaded cannon", one statesman said. And if the country's existence was at stake, so was its soul as it sought a middle way between surrender and heroic self-immolation. Lucky enough to escape invasion, Sweden had the moral misfortune to be granted choices – of a sort. This enthralling book reveals how wretched those choices were, offering a grown-up perspective on a conflict so often seen as a simplistic struggle of good and evil. Gilmour elucidates the soul-searching, concessions and stands that helped Sweden survive – having, on balance, done more good than harm.

Amelia Earhart

by Kathleen C. Winters

(Palgrave, 20) ****"Perhaps some recklessness is called for in all explorers," Kathleen Winters says, and yet she can hardly hide her misgivings about the Amelia Earhart myth. A surprisingly inexperienced pilot, she took little trouble to build up her abilities with practice; she thrilled to the romance of flight, but barely engaged with practicalities. Slack about maintenance, sloppy in her skills, she had little patience with the minutiae of planning and preparation for her epic adventures. Unsparing as Winters is with her subject's many shortcomings, her admiration for her intrepid spirit comes shining through.