Bound for Canaan, Fergus Bordewich
Bound for Canaan, Fergus Bordewich
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Bound for Canaan
The Epic Story of the Underground Railroad, America's First Civil Rights Movement

Author: Fergus Bordewich

Narrator: Peter J. Fernandez

Unabridged: 19 hr 31 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: HarperAudio

Published: 06/07/2016


Synopsis

An important book of epic scope on America’s first racially integrated, religiously inspired movement for changeThe civil war brought to a climax the country’s bitter division. But the beginnings of slavery’s denouement can be traced to a courageous band of ordinary Americans, black and white, slave and free, who joined forces to create what would come to be known as the Underground Railroad, a movement that occupies as romantic a place in the nation’s imagination as the Lewis and Clark expedition. The true story of the Underground Railroad is much more morally complex and politically divisive than even the myths suggest. Against a backdrop of the country’s westward expansion arose a fierce clash of values that was nothing less than a war for the country’s soul. Not since the American Revolution had the country engaged in an act of such vast and profound civil disobedience that not only challenged prevailing mores but also subverted federal law.Bound for Canaan tells the stories of men and women like David Ruggles, who invented the black underground in New York City; bold Quakers like Isaac Hopper and Levi Coffin, who risked their lives to build the Underground Railroad; and the inimitable Harriet Tubman. Interweaving thrilling personal stories with the politics of slavery and abolition, Bound for Canaan shows how the Underground Railroad gave birth to this country’s first racially integrated, religiously inspired movement for social change.

About Fergus Bordewich

Fergus M. Bordewich is the author of several books, including Bound for Canaan, Killing the White Man's Indian, and My Mother's Ghost, a memoir. The son of a national civil rights leader for Native Americans, he was introduced early in life to racial politics. As a journalist, he has written widely on political and cultural subjects in Europe, the Middle East, and East Asia. His articles have appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Smithsonian, American Heritage, Atlantic Monthly, Harper's, Reader's Digest, and many other publications. He was born in New York City, and now lives in New York's Hudson River Valley with his wife and daughter.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Alex

I wanted a book about the Underground Railroad; here's the book my research led me to, and I'm glad it did. I had a pretty murky understanding of what the whole thing was about - like, Harriet Tubman and a bunch of underground tunnels? Now I know better. Here are all the stories you know: Nat Turner,......more

Goodreads review by KC

A truly, truly amazing read. A page-turner yet full of fascinating information. Best of all it debunks the idea that Blacks were passive victims during slavery who made no attempts to free themselves. If you are interested in this country and the people who created it, White and Black, read this boo......more

Fergus Bordewich's Bound for Canaan offers a lively narrative account of the Underground Railroad. Bordewich's book envisions the Underground as America's "first Civil Rights Movement," emphasizing the biracial coalition between freed blacks and white abolitionists that enabled the escape of thousan......more