Christopher Brown

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1,098 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Jan 2026 last heard 20 Jan

Christopher Brown’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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80,000 Hours Podcast · #145 Classic episode – Christopher Brown on why slavery abolition wasn't inevitable · 20 Jan 2026 podcast

And it crossed class lines and all these kinds of things.

The only thing that stood in the way was parliament in some ways.

And we can talk about why that was the case.

But especially from an American point of view, that sounds extraordinary, where anti-slavery was incredibly divisive.

It led to a civil war, obviously.

But when you stop and think about it, if you think about a canvasser walking around, I don't know, Nottingham, with an anti-slavery petition saying, are you for slavery or are you against it?

Well, yeah, I'll sign.

I'm against it.

That's easy, right?

It kind of takes on that character in England.

It takes on that character of a moral stand that you can take that says that is worthwhile, that is unquestionably morally right and virtuous, but which has no real consequences in supporting.

So it becomes a really important part of British national identity in these years.

Yeah, I think so.

In Western Europe, I think that's true.

You know, the ultimate abolition of slavery in the British Empire is tied up, you know, in the revolutions of, you know, 1830 and 1848.

I guess what I would say about this is that by the early 19th century, there's a politics of slavery that has been engaged, especially in the Anglo-American world, where the institution is controversial.

It has to be defended.

It is attacked on moral grounds, on political grounds, sometimes even on economic grounds, routinely.

It is a matter, is a subject of politics in the first half of the 19th century, including democratic politics.

And so I do think that it becomes a kind of a perennial, especially in Britain and the United States, that obviously its resolution takes many decades.

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