by Jonathan Daniel Wells (Public Affairs Books, £25) SLAVERY was formally abolished in New York State in 1827 but the slave trade lived on in the city until the civil war and in this important book Jonathan Daniel Wells argues that the slave trade persisted in New York City in this period because it was the capital of the Southern slave economy. The city’s business community of major banks, insurance companies and the shipping industry financed and facilitated the cotton trade. Many of the leaders of this community played a decisive role in city social life and politics, including control over the powerful Democratic Party.