What’s in it
Tap a tag: ❤ = this matters to me · tap again ✕ = don’t care · again to reset. The list below updates each time.
24 books with the same feel
Include books by the same authorWhen I Was a Slave: Memoirs from the Slave Narrative Collection
Norman R. Yetman · 157 pages
Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II
Douglas A. Blackmon · 474 pages
In this groundbreaking historical expose, Douglas A. Blackmon brings to light one of the most shameful chapters in American history--an "Age of Neoslavery" that thrived from the aftermath of the Civil War through the dawn of World War II.Under laws enacted specifically to intimidate blacks, tens of thousands of African Americans were arbitrarily arrested, hit with outrageous fines, and charged for
The Hemingses of Monticello
Annette Gordon-Reed · 798 pages
Historian and legal scholar Gordon-Reed presents this epic work that tells the story of the Hemingses, an American slave family, and their close blood ties to Thomas Jefferson.
The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism
Edward E. Baptist · 543 pages
Americans tend to cast slavery as a pre-modern institution —the nation's original sin, perhaps, but isolated in time and divorced from America's later success—. But to do so robs the millions who suffered in bondage of their full legacy. As historian Edward E. Baptist reveals in the prizewinning *The Half Has Never Been Told*, the expansion of slavery in the first eight decades after American inde
In the Shadow of Liberty: The Hidden History of Slavery, Four Presidents, and Five Black Lives
Kenneth C. Davis · 295 pages
Here are the stories of five enslaved people who witnessed the birth of America: Billy Lee, valet to George Washington; Ona Judge, who escaped from Martha Washington; Isaac Granger, servant of Thomas Jefferson; Paul Jennings, who witnessed the War of 1812 in James Madison's White House; and Alfred Jackson, "owned" by Andrew Jackson. These true stories explore our country's great, tragic contradict
Life and Times of Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass · 570 pages
"Born and raised a slave, Frederick Douglass (1817?-1895) made two escape attempts before reaching freedom, educated himself against all odds, and became a leading abolitionist and spokesperson for African Americans." "My Bondage and My freedom is his account of his life, and that of slaves generally, in antebellum Maryland. Just as impressive as Douglass's gift for conveying the stark terrors and
Bury the Chains
Adam Hochschild · 466 pages
An account of the first great human rights crusade, which originated in England in the 1780s and resulted in the freeing of hundreds of thousands of slaves around the world. In 1787, twelve men gathered in a London printing shop to pursue a seemingly impossible goal: ending slavery in the largest empire on earth. Along the way, they would pioneer most of the tools citizen activists still rely on t
The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story
Nikole Hannah-Jones · 590 pages
A Slave in the White House: Paul Jennings and the Madisons
Elizabeth Dowling Taylor · 316 pages
Chronicles the life of a former slave to James and Dolley Madison, tracing his early years on their plantation, his service in the White House household staff and post-emancipation achievements as a memoirist.
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
Harriet Jacobs · 228 pages
The true story of an individual's struggle for self-identity, self-preservation, and freedom, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl remains among the few extant slave narratives written by a woman. This autobiographical account chronicles the remarkable odyssey of Harriet Jacobs (1813–1897) whose dauntless spirit and faith carried her from a life of servitude and degradation in North Carolina to l
Twelve Years a Slave
Solomon Northup · 228 pages
Twelve Years a Slave is a harrowing memoir about one of the darkest periods in American history. It recounts how Solomon Northup, born a free man in New York, was lured to Washington, D.C., in 1841 with the promise of fast money, then drugged and beaten and sold into slavery. He spent the next twelve years of his life in captivity on a Louisiana cotton plantation.
The Fires of Jubilee: Nat Turner's Fierce Rebellion
Stephen B. Oates · 208 pages
Portrays America's most famous slave rebel and the insurrection he led in southeastern Virginia's Southampton County in August, 1831.
The Underground Abductor (An Abolitionist Tale about Harriet Tubman)
Nathan Hale · 128 pages
Araminta Ross was born a slave in Delaware in the early 19th century. Slavery meant that her family could be ripped apart at any time, and that she could be put to work in dangerous places and for abusive people. But north of the Mason-Dixon line, slavery was illegal. If she could run away and make it north without being caught or killed, she'd be free. Facing enormous danger, Araminta made it, an
Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America
Ira Berlin · 504 pages
Today most Americans, black and white, identify slavery with cotton, the deep South, and the African-American church. But at the beginning of the nineteenth century, after almost two hundred years of African-American life in mainland North America, few slaves grew cotton, lived in the deep South, or embraced Christianity. Many Thousands Gone traces the evolution of black society from the first arr
Up from Slavery
Booker T. Washington · 192 pages
Booker T. Washington, the most recognized national leader, orator and educator, emerged from slavery in the deep south, to work for the betterment of African Americans in the post Reconstruction period. "Up From Slavery" is an autobiography of Booker T. Washington's life and work, which has been the source of inspiration for all Americans. Washington reveals his inner most thoughts as he transi
The Peculiar Institution: Slavery in the Ante-Bellum South
Kenneth M. Stampp · 435 pages
In ten sparkling chapters the book details and illuminates every aspect of slavery....Slavery is viewed not as a method of regulating race relations, not as an arrangement that was in its essence paternalistic, but as a practical system of controlling and exploiting labor. How the slaves worked, how they resisted bondage, how they were disciplined, how they lived their lives in the quarters, and h
Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made
Eugene D. Genovese · 823 pages
This landmark history of slavery in the South -- a winner of the Bancroft Prize -- challenged conventional views of slaves by illuminating the many forms of resistance to dehumanization that developed in slave society. Rather than emphasizing the cruelty and degradation of slavery, historian Eugene Genovese investigates the ways that slaves forced their owners to acknowledge their humanity through
The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772-1832
Alan Taylor · 624 pages
Frederick Douglass recalled that slaves living along Chesapeake Bay longingly viewed sailing ships as "freedom's swift-winged angels." In 1813 those angels appeared in the bay as British warships coming to punish the Americans for declaring war on the empire. Over many nights, hundreds of slaves paddled out to the warships seeking protection for their families from the ravages of slavery. The runa
Inhuman Bondage: The Rise and Fall of Slavery in the New World
David Brion Davis · 440 pages
"Davis begins with the dramatic Amistad case, which vividly highlights the international character of the Atlantic slave trade and the roles of the American judiciary, the presidency, the media, and both black and white abolitionists. The heart of the book looks at slavery in the American South, describing black slaveholding planters; the rise of the Cotton Kingdom; the daily life of ordinary slav
How the Word Is Passed
Clint Smith III, Clint Smith · 344 pages
How the Word Is Passed by Clint Smith
Malcolm Washington · 341 pages
The Empire of Necessity: Slavery, Freedom, and Deception in the New World
Greg Grandin · 369 pages
Groundbreaking analysis and gripping storytelling from one of today's most original and highly acclaimed historians. 'The Empire of Necessity is scholarship at its best. Greg Grandin's deft penetration into the marrow of the slave industry is compelling, brilliant, and necessary.' -- Toni Morrison 'In this multifaceted masterpiece, Greg Grandin excavates the relentlessly fascinating history of a
The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America
Andres Resendez · 448 pages
A landmark history: the sweeping story of the enslavement of tens of thousands of Indians across America, from the time of the conquistadors up to the early 20th century. Since the time of Columbus, Indian slavery was illegal in much of the American continent. Yet, as Andrés Reséndez illuminates, it was practiced for centuries as an open secret. There was no abolitionist movement to protect the te