Olaudah Equiano was born in Africa in the 18th century and was 11 years old when he was kidnapped into slavery. After being forced to walk to the west coast of Africa and sailing across the Atlantic in horrible conditions on a slave ship, he spent his life as a slave working in the Caribbean and on ships in the British navy. His skill as a sailor allowed him to travel and see a lot of the world. Eventually he was allowed to buy his freedom from his master. As a free man he continued to work as a sailor, mostly out of England. He also became a very devout Christian and primarily believed in predestination. The book is his autobiography, although it does leave out significant portions of his life as far as I can tell.

This is a remarkable book because of its historical value. There are very few autobiographies written by slaves, but Equiano's is invaluable because not only was he a slave, but he was born in Africa and later became a free man. I don't know if there are any other existing books out there written by slaves who had such a wide range of experiences. (Scholars are currently debating whether Equiano may have fabricated parts of his story, but no one really know for sure. Check out Wikipedia if you're interested in the controversy.) In spite of this, I can't give the book more than three stars because, even though it's not particularly dry or boring, it's also not very riveting or fun to read. It's just your average history book. ( )