
Rough Crossings
The Slaves, the British, and the American Revolution
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Narrated by:
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Simon Schama
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By:
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Simon Schama
About this listen
"The most dramatic account so far of the extraordinary expeience of slaves in and after the American Revolution.... Schama's gift for plunging us into the very center of the action makes reading an exhilarating and often moving experience." (Daily Telegraph)
If you were black in America at the start of the Revolutionary War, whom would you want to win? In response to a declaration by the last governor of Virginia that any rebel-owned slave who escaped and served the King would be emancpated, tens of thousands of blacks voted with feet, escaping to fight beside the British. Originally designed to break the plantations of the American South, this military strategy instead unleashed one of the great exoduses in American history.
Told in the voices of the slaves and the white abolitionists who aided them, Simon Schama vividly details the odyssey of these escaped blacks, shedding light on an extraordinary chapter in America's birth.
©2006 Simon Schama (P)2006 HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
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"Schama once again gives his readers something rare: history that is both well told and well documented. In this wonderfully sprawling epic...he manages to bring a scene, a person, a conversation dramatically to life. Would that more historians wrote like this." (Publishers Weekly)
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By: Bob Drury, and others
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The Blazing World
- A New History of Revolutionary England, 1603-1689
- By: Jonathan Healey
- Narrated by: Oliver Hembrough
- Length: 19 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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The seventeenth century was a revolutionary age for the English. It started as they suddenly found themselves ruled by a Scotsman, and it ended in the shadow of an invasion by the Dutch. Under James I, England suffered terrorism and witch panics. Under his son Charles, state and society collapsed into civil war, to be followed by an army coup and regicide. For a short time—for the only time in history—England was a republic. There were bitter struggles over faith and Parliament asserted itself like never before. There were no boundaries to politics.
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Been looking for this book for a long time
- By cmurrell on 07-30-23
By: Jonathan Healey
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We the Poisoned
- Exposing the Flint Water Crisis Cover-Up and the Poisoning of 100,000 Americans
- By: Jordan Chariton, Erin Brockovich - foreword
- Narrated by: Pete Cross, Sophie Amoss
- Length: 10 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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As the ongoing Flint water crisis marks its tenth anniversary, Chariton reveals shocking new evidence of the major government cover-up that resulted in the poisoning of Flint—and shatters what you think you know about what caused the water crisis.
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I thought I had learned what I could, until now
- By Anonymous User on 10-18-24
By: Jordan Chariton, and others
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Empireland
- How Imperialism Has Shaped Modern Britain
- By: Sathnam Sanghera, Marlon James - foreword
- Narrated by: Homer Todiwala, Marlon James
- Length: 10 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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A best-selling journalist’s illuminating tour through the hidden legacies and modern realities of British empire that exposes how much of the present-day United Kingdom is actually rooted in its colonial past. Empireland boldly and lucidly makes the case that in order to understand America, we must first understand British imperialism. Empire—whether British or otherwise—informs nearly everything we do.
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Important history
- By Maggie A. on 07-02-23
By: Sathnam Sanghera, and others
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Alexander at the End of the World
- The Forgotten Final Years of Alexander the Great
- By: Rachel Kousser
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 11 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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By 330 B.C.E., Alexander the Great had reached the pinnacle of success. Or so it seemed. He had defeated the Persian ruler Darius III and seized the capital city of Persepolis. His exhausted and traumatized soldiers were ready to return home to Macedonia. Yet Alexander had other plans. He was determined to continue heading east to Afghanistan in search of his ultimate goal: to reach the end of the world.
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The best perspective on a neglected second half of the story
- By Rachel Hirsch on 01-20-25
By: Rachel Kousser
Simon Schama at his best
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Great book
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Even with this distraction though, I very much enjoyed all the detail he gave about the various people involved, and felt I'd learned quite a bit by the end. This is certainly and conspicuously missing from the history as we were taught it in school.
Great book but I had trouble following the Reader
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Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
Definitely--a totally new perspective on African-American history in North America.What did you like best about this story?
Learning something completely unexpected.What does Simon Schama bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?
His delivery is fabulous, because he's both the author and an accomplished lecturer, so no nuance is missed.Great author, great reader.
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Outstanding book
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Informative with a roller coaster of emotions
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Should be Required Reading
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Splendid
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Loved it!
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Audible is Abridged
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