HOW IDEOLOGY WORKS : HISTORIANS AND THE CASE OF BRITISH ABOLITIONISM

This review considers how historians have approached the role of ideas in understanding the beginnings of early British abolitionism. It pays particular attention to the work of Eric Williams, Roger Anstey, David Brion Davis, and, most recently, Christopher Leslie Brown. It uses Brown’s Moral capital as a point of departure for offering an alternative approach to the role of ideology in early British abolition and about its operation generally.