I like reading books where I have someone to root for. In Marcus Rediker's Freedom Ship, I got plenty of them. Rediker focuses on the maritime flights from slavery in the years right before the Civil War. The first thing you notice about the book is how richly researched and sourced it is. Finding stories on escaped slaves is extremely hard because many of them knew documentation could mean the end for them or anyone who followed behind them. Rediker even tells the story of an enraged Frederick Douglass lambasting an escaped slave who chronicled his method of escape and thus making it impossible to be used again. Needless to say, the research can be thin.

Rediker does an admirable job taking numerous different accounts and forming them to a cohesive book. There are some disjointed sections. For instance, earlier chapters look at a particular aspect of the escape like the free ports these ships would land at. These chapters have multiple stories of escape. Later chapters focus on one particular person to round out the narrative. All of the stories are interesting regardless, but it does feel like two books in one at times. The later chapters are a bit more engaging since you get more time with one person and can get a better sense of them and the trials they have been through.

This is a solid book which should be great for most readers and I definitely recommend it especially for people interested in the Civil War era.

(This book was provided as an advance copy by Netgalley and Viking Books.)

This was a amazing history nonfiction book, it had that feel that I was looking for and had that research element that I was looking for. Marcus Rediker wrote this perfectly and I learned about what was going on in this time-period.