Richard Reddie’s book is a well-researched and broad in scope, history of the Transatlantic Slave Trade which existed for 276 years. He explores the events leading up to the slave trade, painting a picture of a cultured and learned Africa which became a point in the triangular trade route – from Europe firearms, alcohol, brass, copper and manufactured goods were transported to Africa; slaves were taken in Africa and transported by the ‘Middle Passage’ to the West Indies and America; then sugar, tobacco, rum and molasses from America were transported back to Europe. Research suggests up to 15 million enslaved Africans died because of this trade and their treatment by the Europeans makes very sobering reading – especially as Christians weren’t only those trying to abolish the trade but were often those who participated and benefited from it. William Wilberforce and the other abolitionists, such as John Newton, Thomas Clarkson and the freed slave Olaudah Equiano, are shown as people who worked tirelessly against the slave trade but also as people who were fallible and whose 19th century view of Africans unable to determine their own lives feels rather uncomfortable to us today. The book is an informative and yet sobering read about an alternative holocaust, one in which many Christians colluded and whose revenues founded some of our largest institutions. It makes for uncomfortable reading but it is an aspect of our history which must not be ignored.