John Davy (1790 1868) was an English doctor and brother of the chemist Sir Humphrey Davy. After graduating from Edinburgh University, in 1814 Davy became Inspector General of Army Hospitals, and he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1834. In his capacity as Inspector General, he spent 1845 1848 living in Barbados and visiting other Caribbean Islands. This volume, first published in 1854, describes the society and culture of Barbados and other islands, including Trinidad, Tobago and St Lucia. Based on Davy's notes and observations made while stationed on the island, the book...

The lawyer and leading abolitionist James Stephen (1758 1832) published Volume 1 of The Slavery of the British West India Colonies Delineated in 1824. The volume is an exposure of the cruel and oppressive legal system of slavery in the British West Indies. The work explores the origin of nineteenth-century colonial slave laws, the legal status of individual slaves, the legal relations between slaves and their masters, and the policing and governance of slave populations. In each chapter Stephen exposes the cruelty and inhumanity behind the West Indian slave laws. Stephen had been the legal...

The lawyer and leading abolitionist James Stephen (1758 1832) published Volume 2 of The Slavery of the British West India Colonies Delineated in 1830. The volume is an exposure of the cruel and oppressive practice of slavery in the British West Indies. It investigates the living conditions, feeding and clothing of slave populations; the brutal practices, such as 'slave driving', involved in forcing labour; and, by comparisons of forced and free labour, argues for the complete abolition of slavery. Stephen had been the legal mastermind of the Slave Trade Act of 1807, which abolished the slave...

Samuel Johnson (1846 1901) was an Anglican minister and historian renowned for his magisterial history of the Yoruba people. Born in Freetown in Sierra Leone and educated by the Church Missionary Society, Johnson was sent with his family to Idaban in Nigeria in 1857. He was ordained in 1880 and by 1897 had finished the manuscript for The History of the Yorubas. However the original publisher mysteriously misplaced the manuscript. After Johnson's death his brother, Dr Obadiah Johnson, recompiled the text from Samuel's notes. This volume, first published in 1921, contains that reconstructed...

William Martin Leake (1777 1860) was a British military officer and classical scholar interested in reconstructing the topography of ancient cities. He was a founding member of the Royal Geographical Society and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1815. After his retirement in 1815 he devoted the rest of his life to topographical and classical studies. First published in 1826, this second edition contains a detailed discussion of the historical background of and events during the first years of the Greek Revolution (1821 1830). Focusing on the Peloponnese, Leake explores the...

This critical edition of Merovingian and Carolingian charters was edited by the German philologist Karl Zeumer, and published in 1886. Zeumer built on the work of previous editors, most notably the French archivist, Eugene de Roziere, who published an edition in 1854. The charters are grouped by editor, beginning with the Formulae Andecavenses, a collection of sixth- and seventh-century charters first edited in the seventeenth century by the French Benedictine monk, Mabillon. A former student of classical philology at the universities of Gottingen and Leipzig, Zeumer joined the Monumenta...

German historian Leopold von Ranke (1795 1886) is well known for pioneering the modern historical method which advocates empiricism, rather than a focus on the philosophy of history. Emphasising the importance of presenting history exactly as it happened, Ranke asserted that different eras need to be understood in their own contexts rather than in relation to each other: history should not be regarded as one long, teleological narrative. These principles of writing history, established in earlier publications, are all evident here. Originally published in eight volumes between 1859 and 1869,...

German historian Leopold von Ranke (1795 1886) is well known for pioneering the modern historical method which advocates empiricism, rather than a focus on the philosophy of history. Emphasizing the importance of presenting history exactly as it happened, Ranke asserted that different eras need to be understood in their own contexts rather than in relation to each other: history should not be regarded as one long, teleological narrative. These principles of writing history, established in earlier publications, are all evident here. Originally published in eight volumes between 1859 and 1869,...

German historian Leopold von Ranke (1795 1886) is well known for pioneering the modern historical method which advocates empiricism, rather than a focus on the philosophy of history. Emphasizing the importance of presenting history exactly as it happened, Ranke asserted that different eras need to be understood in their own contexts rather than in relation to each other: history should not be regarded as one long, teleological narrative. These principles of writing history, established in earlier publications, are all evident here. Originally published in eight volumes between 1859 and 1869,...

German historian Leopold von Ranke (1795 1886) is well known for pioneering the modern historical method which advocates empiricism, rather than a focus on the philosophy of history. Emphasizing the importance of presenting history exactly as it happened, Ranke asserted that different eras need to be understood in their own contexts rather than in relation to each other: history should not be regarded as one long, teleological narrative. These principles of writing history, established in earlier publications, are all evident here. Originally published in eight volumes between 1859 and 1869,...