About this item
In 1845, seven years after fleeing bondage in Maryland, Frederick Douglass was in his late twenties and already a celebrated lecturer across the northern United States. The recent publication of his groundbreaking Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave had incited threats to his life, however, and to place himself out of harm's way he embarked on a lecture tour of the British Isles, a journey that would span seventeen months and change him as a man and a leader in the struggle for equality.In the first major narrative account of a transformational episode in the life of this extraordinary American, Tom Chaffin chronicles Douglass's 1845-47 lecture tour of Ireland, Scotland, and England. It was, however, the Emerald Isle, above all, that affected Douglass--from its wild landscape ("I have travelled almost from the hill of 'Howth' to the Giant's Causeway") to the plight of its people, with which he found parallels to that of African Americans.
About the Author
"Chaffin's narrative of Darwin's Beagle travels makes the reader feel like we're there with an extraordinary young man as he explores - and ultimately creates a theory that will explain -- the world. This is a well-told version of a great and enormously consequential adventure." - Warren D. Allmon, Cornell University, Professor of Paleontology, and Director, Paleontological Research Institution. "In Odyssey, Tom Chaffin presents a crisp and colorful narrative of Charles Darwin's seminal voyage on the HMS Beagle, frequently and advantageously animated by Darwin's own words. It is a vivid and insightful account of Darwin's experiences and observations leading to his world-shattering theory of natural selection." - Rob Wesson, Author, Darwin's First TheoryAuthor and historian Tom Chaffin's "Odyssey: Young Charles Darwin, The Beagle, and the Voyage that Changed the World" will be published in February 2022 by Pegasus Books. The work chronicles Darwin's five years of travels associated with HMS Beagle, a circumnavigation during which the naturalist often left the ship to conduct extensive overland journeys. Chaffin's other books include "Revolutionary Brothers: Thomas Jefferson, the Marquis de Lafayette, and the Friendship that Helped Forge Two Nations," "Pathfinder: John Charles Frémont and the Course of American Empire" and "Sea of Gray: The Around-The-World Odyssey of the Confederate Raider Shenandoah." (For more information, please visit:www.tomchaffin.com) Chaffin (M.A., American Studies, New York University, Ph.D., history, Emory Universitiy) grew up in Atlanta and spent his early professional years in journalism, living in, among other places, New York City, San Francisco, and Paris. His writings have appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Time, Harper's, the Oxford American, and other publications. He was a frequent contributor to the New York Times' acclaimed "Disunion" series on the American Civil War. A 2012 Fulbright fellow in Ireland, he lives in Atlanta.(author photo, Meta Larsson) .
