A
book all Americans should read, Slave Nation reveals the key role
racism played in the American Revolutionary War, so we can see our past
more clearly and build a better future. In 1772, the High Court in
London freed a slave from Virginia named Somerset, setting a precedent
that would end slavery in England. In America, racist fury over this
momentous decision united the Northern and Southern colonies and
convinced them to fight for independence. Meticulously researched and
accessible, Slave Nation provides a little-known view of the birth of
our nation and its earliest steps toward self-governance. Slave Nation
is a fascinating account of the role slavery played in the American
Revolution and in the framing of the Constitution, offering a fresh
examination of the fight for freedom that embedded racism into our
national identity, led to the Civil War, and reverberates through Black
Lives Matter protests today. A radical, well-informed, and highly
original reinterpretation of the place of slavery in the American War of
Independence.--David Brion Davis, Yale University