Freed From Slavery But Still In Bondage

Published in 1855, My Bondage and My Freedom is the second autobiography by Frederick Douglass. Douglass reflects on the various aspects of his life, first as a slave and than as a freeman. He depicts the path his early life took, his memories of being owned, and how he managed to achieve his freedom. This is an inspirational account of a man who struggled for respect and position in life.

The author's lifetime of insight as the leading authority on slavery in the Western world is summed up in this compelling narrative that links together the profits of slavery, the pain of the enslaved, and the legacy of racism in a sweeping and compelling history of the institution of slavery in the United States. By the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture.

Noting that the modern perception of slavery is so colored by the American experience that people tend not to see other forms, eight essays describe the servile institutions in Asia and Africa during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Among the examples are the Ottoman Empire, Thailand, the Gulf of Guinea, and Senegal. Paper edition (unseen), $14.95. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Emancipation, manumission, and complex legalities surrounding slavery led to a number of women of color achieving a measure of freedom and prosperity from the 1600s through the 1800s. These black women held property in places like Suriname and New Orleans, headed households in Brazil, enjoyed religious freedom in Peru, and created new selves and new lives across the Caribbean. Beyond Bondage outlines the restricted spheres within which free women of color, by virtue of gender and racial restrictions, carved out many kinds of existences. Although their freedom--represented by respectability, opportunity, and the acquisition of property--always remained precarious, the essayists support the surprising conclusion that women of color often sought and obtained these advantages more successfully than their male counterparts.

In this highly original work, Steven A. Epstein shows that the ways Italians employ words and think about race and labor are profoundly affected by the language used in medieval Italy to sustain a system of slavery. The author's findings about the surprising persistence of the "language of slavery" demonstrate the difficulty of escaping the legacy of a shameful past. For Epstein, language is crucial to understanding slavery, for it preserves the hidden conditions of that institution. He begins his book by discussing the words used to conduct and describe slavery in Italy, from pertinent definitions given in early dictionaries, to the naming of slaves by their masters, to the ways in which bondage has been depicted by Italian writers from Dante to Primo Levi and Antonio Gramsci. Epstein then probes Italian legal history, tracing the evolution of contracts for buying, selling, renting, and freeing people. Next he considers the behaviors of slaves and slave owners as a means of exploring how concepts of liberty and morality changed over time. He concludes by analyzing the language of the market, where medieval Italians used words to fix the prices of people they bought and sold. The first history of slavery in Italy ever published, Epstein's work has important implications for other societies, particularly America's. "For too long," Epstein notes, "Americans have studied their own slavery as it if were the only one ever to have existed, as if it were the archetype of all others." His book allows citizens of the United States and other former slave-holding nations a richer understanding of their past and present.

In this controversial history the author tells the story of how the Civil Warand slavery were intertwined, and how internal social conflict undermined theConfederacy in the end.

In Frederick Douglass' autobiography My Bondage and My Freedom we can see the power of literacy and belief. Douglass transforms himself from slave to an abolitionist, journalist, orator, and one of the most powerful voices to emerge from the American civil rights movement with little more than force of will. His breadth of his accomplishments gave hope to generations of people who came after him in their fight for civil rights.