Book review

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.13169/intejcubastud.11.1.0124
• Pages: 124-125
• Published date: 01 July 2019
• Date: 01 July 2019
• Author: Stephen Wilkinson

124 BOOK REVIEWS

InternatIonal Journal of Cuban StudIeS 11.1 Summer 2019

Gerald Horne, The Apocalypse of Settler Colonialism: The Roots of Slavery,

White Supremacy, and Capitalism in Seventeenth-Century North America

and the Caribbean (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2018), pb 256 pp.

ISBN: 9781583676639

Reviewed by Stephen Wilkinson1

In writing about the horrific and sickening details of the enslavement of Africans and

Indigenes in the Americas of the seventeenth century, one can understand the ten-

dency towards an emotive language, but this should not excuse historians from trying

to restrain themselves when discussing these alarming and shameful times. So it is

with this fascinating and surprising treatment of a period that is crucial to our under-

standing of the present. In fact, the only criticism one has of this astonishing book is

Horne’s language, and a propensity to indulge in the use of adjectives and adverbs

that at times get in the way of appreciating his insight. While I would not quibble for

example with the description of the genocide of Africans and Indigenes as an ‘apoca-

lypse’, I do believe that the title of this book would be improved by the removal of

that phrase. As it stands, I suggest the title will put off those who would most benefit

from reading it, for make no bones about it, this really is an important book.

It is important because at a time when both white supremacy and colonial-

ism are resurfacing in Western liberal and particularly Anglo-American poli-

tics, it is vital to recall how this ideology and policy originated. This book is

about the inter-relationship between colonialism, slavery, white supremacy,

the origins of capitalism and liberal democracy. Indeed, its main contribution

in my view is the way it links events in the colonies with those at the core, for

example Bacon’s Rebellion in Virginia in 1676 with the so-called Glorious

Revolution in England in 1688, to expound a stunning and logical argument:

that democracy only became possible with the advent of slavery and the other-

ing of African and Indigenous peoples. It is a long story but one can summarise

it easily. The resistance of the Africans and Indigenes to their brutal treatment

necessitated the recruitment of whites to keep them enslaved. Thus white

supremacy emerged as both a consequence and then proceeded as a cause for

maintaining chattel slavery. The African resistance therefore facilitated the

subsuming of the differences that hitherto kept white society divided and strat-

ified. In other words, white Catholics and Protestants, noblemen and common-

ers were given common cause to fight the threat of the African other and thus

the idea of a white democracy could emerge.

1 Stephen Wilkinson is Lecturer in Politics and International Relations at the University

of Buckingham and Editor of this journal.