Event alert
Loot and plunder: A conversation between two authors
Where: Hatchards Bookshop, Piccadilly, London
When: 6:30 p.m. Friday March 24
Two London authors tell tales of African loot and plunder – treasures stolen in the days of empire and now stashed in the city’s museums. Andrew Heavens is the author of the newly-published book “The Prince and the Plunder: How Britain took one small boy and hundreds of treasures from Ethiopia”. Barnaby Phillips is author of “Loot: Britain and the Benin Bronzes”. They will talk about when the treasures were taken, where they ended up and how Britain’s institutions are responding to mounting calls for their return.
Click here to book a place
Out now
“In this fascinating, haunting book, which takes us from a high mountain plateau in Ethiopia to Osborne on the Isle of Wight where Prince Alamayu met and charmed Queen Victoria, and all too soon to the catacombs of St George’s Chapel Windsor, Andrew Heavens tells the astonishing story of the uprooting of this lost boy.”
Ysenda Maxtone Graham in The Daily Mail
“I am very excited about this extraordinary and thrilling book and more importantly by the thought of everyone who will read it. The Battle of Maqdala and its fallout should be known to every man, woman and child.”
Lemn Sissay
“As Andrew Heavens relates in his vivid new book, ‘The Prince and the Plunder’, they also grabbed Alamayu…”
The Economist
“Andrew Heavens has done an extraordinary thing for British history, which is to tell a story from our not-so-distant past which has been almost unknown to most of us who live in the UK, but is very well known indeed to the people of Ethiopia, whose story is told here. He covers his material with a depth of knowledge and an impressive thoroughness, but with a lightness of touch in the way he tells a story that is, at the same time, profoundly human, deeply political, highly engaging, and which reveals much about our imperial past and how it continues to resonate in our own day. A compelling and essential read!”
The Rev John McLuckie – the returner of the Edinburgh Tabot
“Gripping read, deeply reported, thoroughly enjoyed – a moving tale brought to life in a story that resonates so much today. Brought back many memories of Ethiopia and taught me much I had never known. Buy it, read it!”
PJ – Review on Amazon
“What a fabulous book!! Even if you aren’t as obsessed with Ethiopia as I am, a fascinating, thoughtful, often funny and even more often thought provoking account of the British ‘Abyssinian Expedition’, in 1868, and its aftermath, the effects of which are still going on today. But this is no dry historical account with a bit of modern day disapproval. Heavens captures the personality of the people and the times in such an engaging manner, the pages fly along. Spoiler alert: not everybody in Victorian Britian agreed with spoils of war, including many military leaders. The discussions/arguments started in 1868 continue today. Most important, the book is very readable! Enjoy. X”
My London Passion
