The Autobiography of Frederick Douglass: A Story of Perseverance and Triumph Over Oppression

D. Ansell: great read

United Kingdom on Oct 27, 2023

Andre Alves: MUITO BOM E CHEGOU RAPIDO

Brazil on May 11, 2023

SHEILA: Es un tema que me interesa mucho, sin embargo el estilo de escribirlo es un poco pesado para leer, aunque comprensible!

Spain on Apr 27, 2023

KailaneKailane: Qualidade boa pelo preço; as letras são pequenas mas acredito que isso faça parte também do preço, pois assim economiza página.

Brazil on Apr 22, 2023

Amanda W.: I do not jest when I say that every American should read this book. It was equally sobering and inspiring, but should not be simply relegated to a reminder or a teaching tool. This is the story of a real man whose faith and determination allowed him the freedom to tell this story, and as a result we should be both grateful and careful. Grateful that we have such accounts through which to learn what we may not have been taught. And careful not to repeat a history so brutal as to deny the humanity of any other person.

I cannot but marvel that such a man could recount an experience so horrific without turning to bitterness or resentment. Maybe he felt those things outside of this writing, but he does not even hint. His desire for this work to be helpful and beneficial to readers far surpasses my expectations and leads me only to a place of gratitude, to have been among his readers.

United States on Feb 06, 2023

Maurice Miles MartinezMaurice Miles Martinez: The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is a must read for all who want to study the history of Black people in America. This book was so important that I had to mention it in my book The Real Wakandas of Africa. The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass takes the reader through a journey of what it was like to be a slave in American society. Being an enslaved African-American meant a life of no future and no hope. Douglass details the experiences that he undergoes as he is “broken” by an overseer. This involves psychological warfare against Douglass and other slaves. It shows that slavery was more than just a physical enslavement, and that it included mental enslavement too. There are hundreds of slave narratives that were written. However, if you are only going to read one slave narrative, this is the one. In fact, this is by far the most widely read slave narrative. Without ruining the end, Douglass eventually learns how to read. Once he learns the basic aspects of reading, he does anything within his power to try to learn how to read further. Is this intellectual freedom that eventually drives him to free himself physically. Frederick Douglass became the...

United States on Sep 24, 2021

Katja H. Labonté: 5+ stars & 8/10 hearts. Wow. This is one of the best and most fascinating autobiographies I have ever read. In the first place, it was fascinating because it was written BY a former slave ABOUT slavery, thus with a POV that no one who had never been a slave could possibly have. Douglass' book broke my heart and filled me with indignation and anger, and yet it also made me so happy, for Douglass himself was such a huge argument against any ideas that black people are inferior in any way. Douglass has a splendid writing style and is so lucid and interesting. I really enjoyed his writing from an academic point of view. I was also very impressed by his honesty, firmness, kindness, and restraint. Although he was writing of people and circumstances that caused him much harm, he was not bitter or nasty. He stated his story passionately, but there seemed no evidence of hatred. He disliked, disapproved of, and deplored the actions taken by those people, spoke sharply and showed plainly the wickedness of their actions, but he did not speak of them to raise hatred or anger against the persons--he spoke to raise awareness and indignation against the system of slavery. His appendix was a...

Canada on Jan 06, 2021

bixodoido: As the title implies, this short work is the narrative of Frederick Douglass, an escaped slave. He wrote it by himself, a significant fact in that his prose is so eloquent and his pathos so powerful that it seems impossible for a former slave to have composed it. In this short autobiography, Douglass recounts his life as a slave, and details some of the horrors and atrocities perpetuated on slaves by their fiendish overseers, most of whom Douglass portrays as downright evil. More than just a narrative of his life, Douglass also gives an account of how the desire to be free grew and began to burn within his bosom, and how he grew to hate that horrible institution. Above all, this is a story of a slave learning that he is, in fact, a human being.

The significance of this book cannot be overestimated. In it, Douglass effectively dispels a number of popular myths about slaves and slaveholders, and forever changes the way the reader (especially one who lived while slavery still existed) looks at slavery. The theme of this book is very simple: slavery is wrong. It is evil, it is cruel, and, despite what many people thought at the time, the slaves know how cruel it is. Douglass...

United States on Jan 13, 2003