Q27

[anonymous93]

I chose B. Why is C the correct answer? I see in lines 30-35 that Eltis "eschews Drescher's idealization of British traditions of liberty", but that is not the same as "arguing against it", right?? The argument he goes on to make, that economic factors motivated the opposition, led me to choose B.

I understand that Eltis makes no claims about the viability of colonies that late, but B seemed like the best answer to me.

[ohthatpatrick]

We know we're getting out answer from the last paragraph.

The passage as a whole gave us three differing notions on how slavery ended:
WILLIAMS - slavery was bad for the British economy
DRESCHER - some of it was economical, but there was a strong populist sentiment that thought slavery was wrong
ELTIS - no, it was economical, but for different reasons than what WILLIAMS identified

"eschew" means "to avoid, shun, stay away from".

To shun something could mean to argue against it. In the context of the passage, the transition from 2nd to 3rd paragraph is definitely giving us, "Here's this 3rd thinker. He seems to disagree with the 2nd one and agree with the 1st one but for different reasons."

Line 58-62 looks like another useful line reference for supporting (C). It's under the umbrella of line 50, what "Eltis concludes". And it says that Britain moved past slavery "for reasons other than what Williams cited".

=== other answers ===
(A) Eltis doesn't necessarily dispute that there was popular antislavery sentiment. He's just arguing that THAT's not the main reason slavery ended.

(B) Eltis seems to argue FOR this idea, not against it. Line 55-56.

(D) This sounds like Williams, not Eltis.

(E) This is something factual that happened. These historians are debating how/why it happened

Hope this helps.