The Problem of Emancipation explores a long-neglected aspect of American slavery and the history of the Atlantic World, bridging a gap in our understanding of the American Civil War. It places the origins of the war in a transatlantic context, exploring the impact of Britain's abolition of slavery on the coming of the war, and revealing the strong influence of Britain's old Atlantic empire on the politics of the United States. This ground-breaking study examines how southern and northern American newspapers covered three slave rebellions that preceded British abolition and how American public opinion shifted radically as a result.

Focusing on the six decades that German Moravian missionaries worked in the British colony of Victoria, Australia, this book enriches understanding of colonial politics and the role of the non-British other in manipulating practice and policy in foreign realms. Central to the transnational nature of the book are questions of identity and of how individuals, and the organisations they worked for, can be seen as both colluders and opposers within nation-state borders and politics. It analyses the ways in which the Moravian missionaries navigated competing agendas within the colonial setting, especially those that impacted on their sense of personal vocation, their practices of conversion, and their understandings of the indigenous non-Christian peoples in the settler society of Victoria.

Includes the proceedings of the United Foreign Missionary Society.