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I don't have it in front of me, but there was a nice book detailing the rise and fall of New World slavery. The interesting parts for me being the growth of the abolition movement in England. Relative to the times, it proved to be a nice example of a grass-roots, bottom-up movement then championed by Wilberforce. Angry travelling ministers addressing righteous masses in so many towns. Good stuff. Whatever other ulterior motives it may be argued that the state may have had, there was a right-minded, righteous acknowledgement among enough people to affect a change. Slavery was seen for what it was. Good on ya.
BTW, the book also had some good detail on the absolutely massive slave economies in South America, and how close the USA had come to dropping the whole business earlier on. I hadn't understood so much about that.
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