PGHwrites: Marcus Rediker “Freedom Ship” (Book Launch)

From the award-winning author of 2007’s The Slave Ship, we celebrate the book launch of Marcus Rediker’s latest work: Freedom Ship: The Uncharted History of Escaping Slavery by Sea. Freedom Ship is a definitive, sweeping account of the Underground Railroad’s long-overlooked maritime origins, deftly navigated by Marcus Rediker, a pre-eminent scholar of Atlantic history and professor at the University of Pittsburgh. In this enlightening book launch event, Marcus will be joined in conversation by moderator Tony Norman, an award-winning columnist and feature writer.

Described as “A triumph of storytelling as well as of archival recovery,” by Amitav Ghosh (author of Sea of Poppies), Freedom Ship offers a groundbreaking new look into the secret world of stowaways and the vessels that carried them to freedom across the North and into Canada.

As many as 100,000 enslaved people fled successfully from the horrors of bondage in the antebellum South, finding safe harbor along a network of passageways across North America now known as the Underground Railroad. The truth often untold? Many of these harrowing escape journeys took place not by land but by sea. Deeply researched and grippingly told, Freedom Ship sprawls through the intricate riverways of the Carolinas, to the banks of the Chesapeake Bay, to Boston’s harbors, illuminating the little-known stories of freedom seekers who turned their sights to the sea—among them the legendary abolitionist Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman, one of the Underground Railroad’s most famous architects.

Marcus Rediker puts his command of archival research on full display in this luminous portrait of the Atlantic waterfront as a place of conspiracy, mutiny, and liberation. Freedom Ship is essential reading for anyone looking to understand the complete story of one of North America’s most significant historical moments.
Purchase a copy of Marcus’ book, Freedom Ship, at City of Asylum Bookstore.