A new intellectual and political perspective on the emergence of freedom in the modern world ... A powerful history of political thought and on-the-ground resistance—in many forms, always against seemingly insurmountable odds—that stretched across continents and centuries.
An ambitious project ... Gibson finds surprisingly little to say about the most common types of resistance by enslaved people ... Amid swiftly drawn sketches involving an ever-changing cast of characters, in chapters with cryptic single-word titles such as 'Liberation', 'Lashings' and 'Repeat', it is difficult to detect any clear explanation for the changes sweeping her grand historical landscape.
A broad-based history of rebellion, escape, and agitation in the name of abolition in the slaveholding Americas ... Gibson mixes little-explored episodes with better-known stories ... A solid contribution to the literature of the New World slave trade.
Digesting vast amounts of information, Gibson constructs a sweeping vision of resistance to slavery as a defining element of Western history that made 'abstract concepts of freedom concrete.' Expansive and elegant, this is a marvel.
