This new book by Andrew Fede considers the law of freedom suits and manumission from the point-of-view of legal procedure, evidence rules, damage awards, and trial practicein addition to the abstract principles stated in the appellate decisions. The author shows that procedural and evidentiary roadblocks made it increasingly impossible for many slaves, or free blacks who were wrongfully held as slaves, to litigate their freedom. Even some of the most celebrated cases in which the courts freed slaves must be read as tempered by the legal realities the actors faced or the courts actually recognized in the process. Slave owners in almost all slave societies had the right to manumit or free all or some of their slaves. Slavery law also permitted people to win their freedom if they were held as slaves contrary to law. In this book, Fede provides a comprehensive view of how some enslaved litigants won their freedom in the courtand how many others, like Dred and Harriet Scott, did not because of the substantive and procedural barriers that both judges and legislators placed in the way of people held in slavery who sought their freedom in court. From the 17th century to the Civil War, Southern governments built roadblock after roadblock to the freedom sought by deserving enslaved people, even if this restricted the masters' rights to free their slaves or defied settled law. They increasingly prohibited all manumissions and added layers of procedure to those seeking freedomwhile eventually providing a streamlined process by which free blacks "voluntarily" enslaved themselves and their children. Drawing on his three decades of legal experience to take seriously the trial process and rules under which slave freedom cases were decided, Fede considers how slave owners, slaves, and lawyers caused legal change from the bottom up.

An intriguing tale of one woman’s fight for freedom as she tries to save herself from her past. In The Perilous Road to Freedom, the anticipated sequel to The Perilous Road to Her, N.L. Blandford takes us on Olivia Beaumont’s harrowing journey to find herself and her freedom. A survivor of William Hammond’s human trafficking ring, Olivia Beaumont longs to forget the past five months. Pregnant, and scared of the ties her past will have to her future, Olivia will need more than denial to battle the monsters of her nightmares, and fate. Right outside Olivia’s apartment door stands a past she thought was dead and gone. A past believed to have been killed with her own two hands. A past that forces her back into a world of power, greed and manipulation. Will Olivia’s stubbornness and determination be enough for her to be able to fight the monsters around her, and those in her head, to retake her freedom?

Our Long Walk to Economic Freedom is an entertaining and engaging guide to global economic history told for the first time from an African perspective. In thirty-five short chapters Johan Fourie tells the story of 100,000 years of human history spanning humankind's migration out of Africa to the Covid-19 pandemic. His unique account reveals just how much we can learn by asking unexpected questions such as 'How could a movie embarrass Stalin?', 'Why do the Japanese play rugby?' and 'What do an Indonesian volcano, Frankenstein and Shaka Zulu have in common?'. The book sheds new light on urgent debates about the roots and reasons for prosperity, the march of opportunity versus the crushing boot of exploitation, and why it is the builders of society – rather than the burglars –who ultimately win out.

A Long Road to Freedom The Life of Patrick McCrystal An Irish Soldier’s Cry for Peace By Mary Mc Cartan Most men returning from World War 2 never spoke about their experiences. Still in their youth they simply closed the book on the past and started a new life. The young Irish fellas returning, especially to the North were forced to bury their history even further down and completely deny it for their own safety. Patrick Mc Crystal was one of those men who arrived home alive with a story of horror. But he locked that story inside for 53 years before being forced to tell it. This is his story. A first hand experience of a life time of war through the eyes of one Peace-loving man who has seen the devastation of some of the most gruesome attacks on civilian populations in the 20th Century. Patrick found himself in Malta in 1940 trapped in the most bombed place in world history. After surviving that siege he ended up in the frontline as the Germans slaughtered British Troops on Leros. As a POW Patrick helped bury the tens of thousands of German civilians killed in Dresden by Allied attacks. On returning home to peaceful normality, war found him again in 1969. Raising a family through the Northern Ireland Troubles was difficult and Patrick suffered the loss of his own daughter in the bombing of his hometown of Omagh in 1998. This is the survival story of a man who has seen the best and worst of human nature and truly understands the price of freedom

Freedom in the World, the Freedom House flagship survey whose findings have been published annually since 1972, is the standard-setting comparative assessment of global political rights and civil liberties. The survey ratings and narrative reports on 194 countries and 14 territories are used by policymakers, the media, international corporations, civic activists, and human rights defenders to monitor trends in democracy and track improvements and setbacks in freedom worldwide. The Freedom in the World political rights and civil liberties ratings are determined through a multi-layered process of research and evaluation by a team of regional analysts and eminent scholars. The analysts used a broad range of sources of information, including foreign and domestic news reports, academic studies, nongovernmental organizations, think tanks, individual professional contacts, and visits to the region, in conducting their research. The methodology of the survey is derived in large measure from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and these standards are applied to all countries and territories, irrespective of geographical location, ethnic or religious composition, or level of economic development.