Edexcel AS/A Level History, Paper 1&2: Challenges to the authority of the state in the late 18th and 19th centuries ActiveBook
- Created by: Hezzy
- Created on: 01-03-19 09:30
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- Eric Williams and the 'Decline Thesis'
- Believed that economic interests was the motivation for any action that has been undertaken by any movement
- Took a very critical view of the abolitionists and particularly their 'sanity' image
- Believed that abolitionists were selective with their efforts
- If they were truly motivated by Humanitarianism, they would look into other crimes
- Working conditions in the mines or the poverty of the working class for example
- If they were truly motivated by Humanitarianism, they would look into other crimes
- The growth of mechanisation
- transformed the nature of British commerce
- Ushered in a 'greater preference' for paid labour
- The 'Decline Thesis' has been comprehensively challenged
- Found to be less persuasive in recent histores
- weakness of his argument lies in his claim that economic considerations were the primary motive for abolition and that every action is motivated by it
- Found to be less persuasive in recent histores
- Contended that the slave trade was challenged in the late 1700s because it was becoming unprofitable for those engaged with it
- As profits declined it became easier to criticise the slave trade
- Easier to promote alternative systems of the industrial age
- As profits declined it became easier to criticise the slave trade
- When profits were high (early 1700s)
- There was NO effort to abolish either slavery OR the slave trade
- This polemical approach reduces the importance of other factors
- By focusing INTENTLY upon one feature, opens itself up to criticism
- Seymour Drescher
- Has challenged the central idea
- Showed how abolishing the trade actually did more to undermine the slave economy
- Rather than Williams' contention that abolition was motivated because of this decilne
- Supported the importance that Williams placed upon ECONOMIC CONSIDERATIONS
- Endorsed the work as a seminal text
- Encouraged a more subtle consideration as to why the slave trade was abolished
- Endorsed the work as a seminal text
- Seymour Drescher
- By focusing INTENTLY upon one feature, opens itself up to criticism
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