"Brooke Newman''s meticulously sourced and gripping book puts the British Royal Family''s sanction and investment in the transatlantic slave trade in full view. Important, timely, and fascinating on every page, she asks the pressing question: will King Charles III become the first British monarch to break the Crown''s silence on this troubling history?" - Laura Trevelyan, journalist and Honorary Fellow at the University of the West Indies'' PJ Patterson Institute "At last! A comprehensive yet forensic study of the royal family''s slavery involvement. In response to Brooke N. Newman''s groundbreaking new book, the royals should use their global platform to promote better public knowledge of the slavery system and its legacies." - Professor Corinne Fowler, author of The Countryside: Ten Walks Through Rural Britain and its Hidden History of Empire "The Crown''s Silence is a groundbreaking and necessary intervention in Britain''s long-overdue reckoning with its past. Brooke Newman meticulously exposes how the Crown profited from human suffering, embedding the transatlantic slave trade into the very foundations of Britain''s wealth and power. The Crown''s Silence is essential reading. It reminds us that reconciliation is impossible without truth, and that silence, however royal, can never erase the voices of the enslaved or the legacies of their struggle for freedom.
" - Bell Ribeiro-Addy MP, Labour Member of Parliament for Clapham & Brixton Hill "Diligent, forensic, and surprising, The Crown''s Silence is a book that will provoke many necessary and overdue conversations." - Sathnam Sanghera, author of Empireworld: How British Imperialism Has Shaped the Globe "Brooke Newman has written a brave, brilliant, and essential book, telling truths that many will not want to hear. I hope The Crown''s Silence will inspire investigations of other maritime monarchies as we reckon with the still-deadly legacies of human bondage." - Marcus Rediker, author of The Slave Ship: A Human History "The Crown''s Silence chips away at the hard stone of buried history protecting the British Royal Family''s entanglement with slavery. Brooke Newman confidently, deftly unearths the lies, the denials, and the enormous amounts of money made off the backs of enslaved people, all the way back to Queen Elizabeth I." - Kate Winkler Dawson, author of American Sherlock and The Sinners All Bow "An engrossing tale. An account of powerful people behaving badly that''s hard to resist." - Kirkus Reviews "Like a police procedural about a crime against humanity, this terrific book tells a terrible history: the failure of an empire''s leaders, century after century, to repudiate evil.
" - Joyce E. Chaplin, author of The Franklin Stove: An Unintended American Revolution and James Duncan Phillips Professor of Early American History at Harvard University "Brooke Newman''s The Crown''s Silence is a groundbreaking and necessary intervention in Britain''s long-overdue reckoning with its past. For centuries, the monarchy has cloaked itself in grandeur while concealing the brutal reality of its deep entanglement in the enslavement and trafficking of peoples of African descent. Newman meticulously exposes how the Crown profited from human suffering, embedding the transatlantic slave trade into the very foundations of Britain''s wealth and power. This book is not about blame. It is about truth, accountability, and justice. It challenges the carefully curated silences that have protected the monarchy from accountability and calls us to confront the truth: our national story is one of exploitation as much as it is of empire. For those of us who continue to demand justice, reparations, and honesty about Britain''s history, The Crown''s Silence is essential reading.
It reminds us that reconciliation is impossible without truth, and that silence, however royal, can never erase the voices of the enslaved or the legacies of their struggle for freedom." - Bell Ribeiro-Addy MP, Labour Member of Parliament for Clapham & Brixton Hill.