The Empire of Necessity

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• SOURCE: New York University
  3-27-15
  

  History's Grandin Wins Bancroft Prize for "The Empire of Necessity"

  Grandin’s book centers on the Herman Melville novella, Benito Cereno. In constructing it, Melville draws from the memoirs of Captain Amasa Delano, an early-19th century New England seal hunter, who climbs aboard a distressed Spanish ship carrying West Africans he thought were slaves. He is mistaken.