Lost & Found

Eye-opening companion to Albion's Seed

Reviewed: 07-29-22

It's not that you must have read Fischer's earlier book, Albion's Seed, on the several English migrations to enjoy and appreciate this book, but I think it helps. As Fischer moves through the distinctive forms that slavery (and resistance to it) took in the various colonies, the interplay of cultures is as important as the particular persons, providing possibilities for action in one place that simply aren't found in another. The earlier book's rich descriptions help us understand the English side of these encounters, and to expect a similar variety on the African side.

But even without them, this book is full of stories and characters, accompanied by careful accounting for developments in custom and law, emancipation and education. We learn from what parts of the continent, and which of its peoples, the American colonies tended to receive Africans, in what numbers and under what conditions. We get a taste, and want to learn more, of how particular peoples were perceived, how they shaped not only their own life in bondage and into freedom, but how they affected those with whose position and power they had to reckon. Fischer's dispassionate portrayal of the cruelties of slavery makes all the more remarkable the impact and influence of these Africans on their new home.

A book that features speakers (not just names) from language groups both European and African demands much of the audiobook narrator. I greatly appreciated Lamarr Gulley's effort to give expression to the cultural and linguistic diversity of that world by rendering quotations in distinctive voices and accents. That, together with a voice that is both rich and clear, more than made up for a delivery whose cadence took a little getting used to.

Grateful to both author and narrator for this piece of our history.

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