Search results for ""author william g. thomas""

Winner of the Mark Lynton Prize in History—the story of the longest and most complex legal challenge to slavery in American history"A rich, roiling history that Thomas recounts with eloquence and skill. . . . The very existence of freedom suits assumed that slavery could only be circumscribed and local; what Thomas shows in his illuminating book is how this view was eventually turned upside down in decisions like Dred Scott. 'Freedom was local,' Thomas writes. 'Slavery was national.'"—Jennifer Szalai, New York Times"Gripping. . . . Profound and prodigiously researched."—Alison L. LaCroix, Washington Post For over seventy years and five generations, the enslaved families of Prince George’s County, Maryland, filed hundreds of suits for their freedom against a powerful circle of slaveholders, taking their cause all the way to the Supreme Court. Between 1787 and 1861, these lawsuits challenged the legitimacy of slavery in American law and put slavery on trial in the nation’s capital. Piecing together evidence once dismissed in court and buried in the archives, William Thomas tells an intricate and intensely human story of the enslaved families (the Butlers, Queens, Mahoneys, and others), their lawyers (among them a young Francis Scott Key), and the slaveholders who fought to defend slavery, beginning with the Jesuit priests who held some of the largest plantations in the nation and founded a college at Georgetown. A Question of Freedom asks us to reckon with the moral problem of slavery and its legacies in the present day.

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Winner of the Mark Lynton Prize in History—the story of the longest and most complex legal challenge to slavery in American history"A rich, roiling history that Thomas recounts with eloquence and skill. . . . The very existence of freedom suits assumed that slavery could only be circumscribed and local; what Thomas shows in his illuminating book is how this view was eventually turned upside down in decisions like Dred Scott. 'Freedom was local,' Thomas writes. 'Slavery was national.'"—Jennifer Szalai, New York Times"Gripping. . . . Profound and prodigiously researched."—Alison L. LaCroix, Washington Post For over seventy years and five generations, the enslaved families of Prince George’s County, Maryland, filed hundreds of suits for their freedom against a powerful circle of slaveholders, taking their cause all the way to the Supreme Court. Between 1787 and 1861, these lawsuits challenged the legitimacy of slavery in American law and put slavery on trial in the nation’s capital. Piecing together evidence once dismissed in court and buried in the archives, William Thomas tells an intricate and intensely human story of the enslaved families (the Butlers, Queens, Mahoneys, and others), their lawyers (among them a young Francis Scott Key), and the slaveholders who fought to defend slavery, beginning with the Jesuit priests who held some of the largest plantations in the nation and founded a college at Georgetown. A Question of Freedom asks us to reckon with the moral problem of slavery and its legacies in the present day.

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There are over 600,000 different websites on the Civil War. The Civil War on the Web gives history enthusiasts everything they need to narrow down the search to only the best, most useful sites. The authors have examined and evaluated thousands of websites to prepare this new book. They have included only the most carefully constructed, highly informative, artfully designed sites on the Civil War. The Civil War on the Web is the first book and only book available that will guide Civil War buffs and history enthusiasts to the most valuable historical information on the web. This book includes: Detailed reviews of the top 95 sites A one- to five-star rating of each site's content, aesthetics, and navigation A list of over 300 additional recommended sites including URLs and brief descriptions Free CD-ROM (IBM and MAC compatible) with hotlinks to all 400-plus sites in the book

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