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Beyond Freedom's Reach Adam Rothman (2015). Beyond Freedom's Reach: A Kidnapping in the Twilight of Slavery. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ISBN: 978-0-674-36812-5 (Hardcover) $35.00 Pages: 257
The prologue to Adam Rothman's Beyond Freedom's Reach reads more like the beginning of a crime thriller than a historical monograph. It promises a captivating story of kidnapping against the backdrop of geopolitical and interpersonal tensions along the lines of race, gender, and nation, set in New Orleans in 1862-1863. Rothman's book tells the story of Rose Herera, a slave whose owner moved to Cuba and took Herera's children with her against Herera's wishes, leaving her in Louisiana. Herera spent three years working through the legal system to get her children back.
Rothman largely delivers on the promise of his prologue, telling Herera's story with close detail, offering evidence from primary sources as well as arguments by example and analogy in the absence of direct evidence (the notes constitute 50 of the book's 250 pages). History has largely forgotten Herera's story, especially because so many of its key moments coincided with major national events like Robert E. Lee's surrender and Abraham Lincoln's assassination. In Rothman's words, "Herera's story deserves to be told because it humanizes the history of slavery and emancipation in the United States and dramatizes key aspects of that history" (5). As such, Rothman embraces and...