Frederick Douglass

by Sharman Apt Russell, Nathan Irvin Huggins

A biography of the man who, after escaping slavery, became an orator, writer, and leader in the anti-slavery movement of the early nineteenth century

Genres: History

112 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1988

About the author

I am pleased to be considered a nature and science writer and excited that my Diary of a Citizen Scientist was awarded the John Burroughs Medal for Distinguished Nature Writing. The John Burroughs Medal was first given in 1926, and recipients include Aldo Leopold, Rachel Carson, Barry Lopez, John McPhee, and many others. To be in such a list.

My most recent nonfiction is What Walks This Way: Discovering the Wildlife Around Us Through Their Tracks and Signs (Columbia University Press, 2024)--part memoir of my tracking experiences, part introduction to the basics of identifying mammal tracks, and part call to reform how we manage wildlife in North America.

My previous Within Our Grasp: Childhood Malnutrition Worldwide and the Revolution Taking Place to End It (Pantheon Books, April, 2021) combines my longtime interest in the environment with my longtime interest in hunger. I began writing about this subject some twenty years ago, believing firmly that the goals of the environmentalist and the humanitarian are aligned. Healthy children require a healthy Earth. A healthy Earth requires healthy children.

Essentially I write about whatever interests me and seems important--living in place, grazing on public land, archaeology, flowers, butterflies, hunger, Cabeza de Vaca, citizen science, global warming, and pantheism.

I like this range of subject matter. I believe, too, in this braid of myth and science, celebration and apocalypse.

A little bit of bio:

Raised in the suburbs of Phoenix, Arizona, in 1981 I settled in southern New Mexico as a "back to the lander" and have stayed there ever since. I am a professor emeritus in the Humanities Department at Western New Mexico University in Silver City, as well as a mentoring faculty at Antioch University in Los Angeles. I received my MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Montana and my B.S. in Conservation and Natural Resources from the University of California, Berkeley.

My work has been translated into Korean, Chinese, Swedish, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Turkish, Polish, and Italian. That is really a unique thrill: to see your words in Chinese ideograms.

Reviews

[Sid Mathur · Rating 5 out of 5]

This biography talks about the life of Frederick Douglass. Frederick Douglass was a an American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman. This book talks about his entire life and what he did during these jobs. The book also includes details from his childhood and his lasting impact on the world. The biography also includes illustrations to allow for the reader to imagine each scene with lots of detail. This book also is very powerful and has a text-to-world. Finally, the book is very straightforward and objective. I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the life of an abolitionist.

[Christy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Critically acclaimed biographies of history's most notable African Americans- Straightforward and objective writing- Lavishly illustrated with photographs and memorabilia- Essential for multicultural studies