How Long to Read Specters of the Atlantic

How Long Does it Take to Read Specters of the Atlantic?

It takes the average reader 6 hours and 50 minutes to read Specters of the Atlantic by Ian Baucom

Assuming a reading speed of 250 words per minute. Learn more

Description

In September 1781, the captain of the British slave ship Zong ordered 133 slaves thrown overboard, enabling the ship’s owners to file an insurance claim for their lost “cargo.” Accounts of this horrific event quickly became a staple of abolitionist discourse on both sides of the Atlantic. Ian Baucom revisits, in unprecedented detail, the Zong atrocity, the ensuing court cases, reactions to the event and trials, and the business and social dealings of the Liverpool merchants who owned the ship. Drawing on the work of an astonishing array of literary and social theorists, including Walter Benjamin, Giovanni Arrighi, Jacques Derrida, and many others, he argues that the tragedy is central not only to the trans-Atlantic slave trade and the political and cultural archives of the black Atlantic but also to the history of modern capital and ethics. To apprehend the Zong tragedy, Baucom suggests, is not to come to terms with an isolated atrocity but to encounter a logic of violence key to the unfolding history of Atlantic modernity. Baucom contends that the massacre and the trials that followed it bring to light an Atlantic cycle of capital accumulation based on speculative finance, an economic cycle that has not yet run its course. The extraordinarily abstract nature of today’s finance capital is the late-eighteenth-century system intensified. Yet, as Baucom highlights, since the late 1700s, this rapacious speculative culture has had detractors. He traces the emergence and development of a counter-discourse he calls melancholy realism through abolitionist and human-rights texts, British romantic poetry, Scottish moral philosophy, and the work of late-twentieth-century literary theorists. In revealing how the Zong tragedy resonates within contemporary financial systems and human-rights discourses, Baucom puts forth a deeply compelling, utterly original theory of history: one that insists that an eighteenth-century atrocity is not past but present within the future we now inhabit.

How long is Specters of the Atlantic?

Specters of the Atlantic by Ian Baucom is 398 pages long, and a total of 102,684 words.

This makes it 134% the length of the average book. It also has 125% more words than the average book.

How Long Does it Take to Read Specters of the Atlantic Aloud?

The average oral reading speed is 183 words per minute. This means it takes 9 hours and 21 minutes to read Specters of the Atlantic aloud.

What Reading Level is Specters of the Atlantic?

Specters of the Atlantic is suitable for students ages 12 and up.

Note that there may be other factors that effect this rating besides length that are not factored in on this page. This may include things like complex language or sensitive topics not suitable for students of certain ages.

When deciding what to show young students always use your best judgement and consult a professional.

Where Can I Buy Specters of the Atlantic?

Specters of the Atlantic by Ian Baucom is sold by several retailers and bookshops. However, Read Time works with Amazon to provide an easier way to purchase books.

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