Emma Christopher

I can't quite put my finger on why I didn't enjoy this book. The subject was exotic enough, and the history of transportation of convicts is one of my (more obscure) interests, as indeed is Africa. There's a bucket-load of exotic and colourful characters as well. And the icing on the cake should have been that this chapter of history is little-known.

It could simply be the font the book was set in, the 12 point typeface and the seemingly large line spacing left each page looking like white space with my eye leaping about looking for the next word or simply drifting off the edge of the page. I have a suspicion the book (over 400 pages) could have been done in 300 even without the assistance of an editor. But if not the appearance then perhaps it was something about the content. Characters seem to be introduced constantly, and in the end the story seemed to rely on characters to carry it forward, and rather less on analysis and narrative. A strong sense of the story developing in place and time eluded me.

This might have worked much more powerfully if the author had shared some of her personal current day experiences of travelling in West Africa but it all seems rather disembodied to me, and less attractive for that. Notwithstanding all of this, it is - as far as I know - the only scholarly modern account of the attempt to settle British convicts in West Africa, and as such is an essential text in any collection looking at British strategies for transporting convicts. Conventional history used to say that Australia became the 'obvious' choice when the American colonies were no longer available. But as Christopher explains, it wasn't a straightforward decision. And ultimately it explains why the extraordinary proposal to send convicts to Australia, an unknown and impossibly remote land, seemed less insane than it might have when considered in the context of the appalling history of failure in West Africa. Recommended for those that need to read about such things, but it's not gripping entertainment (sadly).… (plus d'informations)

Sometimes I will read a book for pure entertainment; other times, I will read something because I "should". Very occasionally, one comes across a book that neatly sits on both stalls. This is one of those tomes. Emma Christopher does a magnificent job of bringing to life what could have been a very dry history lesson in deed!

She achieves this by garnering as much detail as possible about a selection of individual characters, both prisoners and gaolers. I am particularly impressed by her ability to distance herself from passing 21st century judgement upon these people. She can be equally sympathetic to the ruling class as to the prisoners and, she paints both as a 'curate's egg' - good in parts.

Almost everyone is aware that Britain sent her convicts to Australia, a sizeable number will know that America had been a convenient dumping ground prior to this but, I, for one, did not know that, between these two destinations, we used Africa as a prison come capital punishment for those that the state held to be undesirable. Africa was a land where few Europeans could survive whilst setting up a colony from scratch and, by the time the prison masters had reduced the already meagre rations that these unfortunates were given, their plight was almost universally sealed. Few survived the first six months in this harsh climate against diseases unknown to Europe. It is interesting that the state was sufficiently uncaring as to accept that most of their prisoners would die in Africa and yet, they persisted to waste money sending them to the dark continent, rather than hang them in Britain.

Reading this book lead to an uncomfortable feeling of deja vu: 'justice', it seems, has always trod the same path; the really guilty so often getting away scot free time and time again, due to their cunning, whilst some poor child (and many of these 'dangerous criminals' were children) would be despatched to some dystopia.

I read this book at the time of the riots in London (spreading to many other major English cities) and, one gets the feeling that society really does not learn from its history. Listening to our politicians currently vying to see which can heap the most opprobrium upon the rioters, sounds dangerously close to the self satisfied voice of the ruling class against a society that felt disassociated from the England in which these toffs lived.

I do not wish to paint all the pathetic looters of recent date as lost souls, any more than every prisoner transported to America, Africa or Australia was a case for social care, but if more people read this book and considered the bigger picture, perhaps we would not be condemned to keep repeating the unfortunate parts of our history.… (plus d'informations)