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Mastery, Tyranny, and Desire: Thomas Thistlewood and His Slaves in the Anglo-Jamaican World | 
 enlarge | Author: Trevor Burnard
Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
Category: Book
List Price: $25.00
Buy New: $21.00
You Save: $4.00 (16%)
New (6) Used (7) from $16.95
Rating:  3 reviews
Sales Rank: 198505
Media: Paperback
Pages: 368
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 5.9 x 0.8
ISBN: 0807855251
Dewey Decimal Number: 306.362097292
EAN: 9780807855256
ASIN: 0807855251
Publication Date: May 24, 2004
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Eighteenth-century Jamaica, Britain's largest and most valuable slave-owning colony, relied on a brutal system of slave management to maintain its tenuous social order. Trevor Burnard provides unparalleled insight into Jamaica's vibrant but harsh African and European cultures with a comprehensive examination of the extraordinary diary of plantation owner Thomas Thistlewood. Thistlewood's diary, kept over the course of forty years, describes in graphic detail how white rule over slaves was predicated on the infliction of terror on the bodies and minds of slaves. Thistlewood treated his slaves cruelly even while he relied on them for his livelihood. Along with careful notes on sugar production, Thistlewood maintained detailed records of a sexual life that fully expressed the society's rampant sexual exploitation of slaves. In Burnard's hands, Thistlewood's diary reveals a great deal not only about the man and his slaves but also about the structure and enforcement of power, changing understandings of human rights and freedom, and connections among social class, race, and gender, as well as sex and sexuality, in the plantation system.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Brilliant August 2, 2007
Christine Daniels (Lansing, Michigan)
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
This is an absolutely brilliant book, and I do not use that word lightly. It is must reading for anyone interested (even tangentially) in Caribbean history or indeed in fascinating history in general.
P. Stern June 25, 2007
P. Stern
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
This fascinating book is scrupulously researched and very well-written. It is also, in its fine-grained portrayal of the slave-holder Thomas Thistlewood, deeply disturbing. The paradox that Burnard explores is how Thistlewood, an amateur botanist and would-be student of the enlightenment, could also be a sadistic slave-holder in a viciously degrading society. It's extremely thought-provoking, and Burnard's own careful judgments seem consistently on the money. For me, this is an ideal work of academic history.
 Anxiously Awaiting My Copy September 8, 2005
Speedy Reviewer (New York)
4 out of 9 found this review helpful
I recently read a thorough review for this book and can hardly wait to receive it now. I've read bits about Thistlewood before, but this book, based heavily on his diaries, seems like it will cover more on the man and his life in Jamaica.
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