Book description
Cassandra Pybus adds greatly to the work of [previous] scholars by insisting that slaves stand at the center of their own history . . . Her 'biographies' of flight expose the dangers that escape entailed and the courage it took to risk all for freedom. Only by measuring those dangers…
Why read it?
2 authors picked Epic Journeys of Freedom as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
I love Epic Journeys of Freedom because the Australian historian Cassandra Pybus follows some of the most extraordinary lives I’ve ever encountered in history—and she tracks them to the ends of the earth.
The scope of this book is just breathtaking. Cassandra traces the odyssey of Black Americans like Harry Washington, who escaped slavery (at George Washington’s Mount Vernon), fought for their freedom, and found their way first to British Canada and eventually to Sierra Leone in West Africa.
If you want to see why historians love their jobs—how we get to be both detective and time traveler then this…
From Richard's list on The best books on the American Revolution as a World War.
Rather than writing the life of just one person, Pybus scours fragmentary church, legal, military, and prison records on three continents to create what might be called a cumulative biography.
Pybus reconstructs the lives of individuals in the diaspora of men, women, and their families who embraced Britain’s offer of freedom to anyone who fled rebel enslavers to join its forces during the American Revolution.
Among them were men formerly enslaved to George Washington and Patrick Henry.
Evacuated by the withdrawing British forces at the end of the war, the continuing quest for freedom of Black Loyalists brought them to…
From Vincent's list on The best books that recover early Black Atlantic lives.
If you love Epic Journeys of Freedom...
December on 5C4
Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!
On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…
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