Greg Grandin, the author of “Fordlandia,” has written another engrossing book. The Empire of Necessity: Slavery, Freedom, and Deception in the New World chronicles a bloody slave rebellion on the high seas in 1804, when both human political liberty and abject bondage were rising apace – both often advanced by the very same people. It wasn’t so much irony as cause and effect, the author argues. Paralleling the historical drama is an equally intriguing examination of how Herman Melville transformed the incident into fiction for his own metaphysical purposes. You can read the Monitor's full review of "The Empire of Necessity" here.
