Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery - Paperback

by Eric Metaxas (Author)

William Wilberforce was born in Hull, England in 1759, at a time when slavery was accepted, as it had been for thousands of years. Society was so dependent on it, abolition was unthinkable.

A weak, sickly child, William grew into a small, frail man. Yet he was one of the brightest, wittiest, best-connected and generally talented men of his day, a Member of Parliament at the age of 21, and was to turn the world upside down by achieving what many thought impossible: the abolition of the British slave trade and the end of slavery in the British colonies.

In Amazing Grace, Eric Metaxas's gripping narrative paints a detailed portrait, not just of William Wilberforce himself and the Abolitionist Movement but also other contemporary concerns of the social reformers. Together with entries from Wilberforce's own diaries documenting his travels and the people he meets - from the paupers of Cheddar to Marie Antoinette - this age is brought vividly to life.

You will discover how William Wilberforce changed the world and brought about the abolition of slavery and be inspired by his remarkable life.

• Tells the life story of abolitionist William Wilberforce (1759 -1833)
• Accessible and engaging biography
• Shares Wilberforce's extraordinary role as a human rights activist, cultural reformer, and member of Parliament
• Unpacks the passionate twenty year fight to abolish the British slave trade
• Reveals Wilberforce's fight against the prevailing political and cultural views of slavery
• Shows a passion to fight social injustice
• Metaxas is the New York Times bestselling author of Bonhoeffer