“Capitalism and Slavery,” the published form of Eric Williams’ doctoral dissertation, famously argues that the decline of the transatlantic slave trade was precipitated, not by the sudden moral enlightenment or conscience of slave owners as the prevailing British narrative claims, but rather, by economics.

Williams, who later became Trinidad and Tobago’s first prime minister, put forward a compelling case for this revolutionary argument in the late 1930s during his time at Oxford University; he described the work as “first, a study in English economic history and second, in West Indian and Negro history […] a study of the contribution of slavery to the development of British capitalism.”

The book, light years ahead of its time when it was first published in the United States in 1944, is currently receiving new interest after both the UK Observer and Guardian erroneously claimed this week that after more than 80 years, the groundbreaking work was finally getting a British publisher.

As Trinidadian Reginald Dumas pointed out in a letter to the editor of the Trinidad and Tobago Newsday, however, his copy of the book “states very clearly that it was published by Andre Deutsch of 105 Great Russell Street, London, in 1964.” Meanwhile, British writer and academic Paul Gilroy tweeted: