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Although historian Eric Williams's 1944 thesis that British abolitionism was driven primarily by economic decline rather than humanitarian impulse faced intense skepticism for decades, recent archival discoveries have prompted a cautious reconsideration of his claims. Modern economic historians do not endorse Williams’s arguments wholesale, as data on colonial trade profits complicate his bleakest assessments; rather, their embrace of his framework has been distinctly ______, validating his emphasis on mercantile pressures while continuing to recognize the genuine efficacy of moral reform movements.