A small, but not insignificant, accomplishment

Earlier today, for the first time in nearly three months, I finished reading a book. The book was "American Slavery, American Freedom: The Ordeal of Colonial Virginia" by Edmund S. Morgan.

When I chose to read this book, I knew it would take me a while to get through it. History books, even those that are well-written and engaging, tend to be more dense than other sorts of books. Even still, three months to finish a book is atypical of me, and that's not failing to account for the fact that I'm a slow reader.

The author aimed to understand the paradox between slavery and freedom that existed at the time of our nation's founding and that continues in some ways to effect relations among us today. As the author states in the preface, there was an "apparent contradiction between [the colonists'] proclamations of equality and liberty and their continuing possession of slaves," a deep contradiction that "required a civil war because slavery and freedom are irreconcilable opposites."

Reading the book took a long while for reasons both internal and external to the book itself. Internally, the author began his inquiry at a point in history that pre-dated even the European settlement of present-day Virginia, and from there slowly and methodically worked his way through socio-historical developments that eventually led to the American Revolution. This meant that that issue of the enslavement of Americans from Africa was not dealt with directly until the penultimate chapter of the book. I felt a bit misled and this sometimes affected my motivation for reading the book.

Externally, I had the nearly three-week trip to southeast Asia that put any reading effectively on hold. And for the month before the trip, almost all my free time was consumed with dating a girl with whom I'd had high hopes of starting a serious relationship. It was only once I came back from the trip, and soon realized that the prospects of landing another legal project were bleak, that I settled into the idea that I wanted to finish this book once and for all.

So there you have it. I finished my book. And with that, I've made a small, but not insignificant, accomplishment. Psychologically, I feel that I've made progress on something, and I'll certainly take that for what it's worth; it's something to build on. As you can see to the left of this text, I was finally able to add another title to my list of recently-read books.

Now I think I'll take on something a little bit easier to read, perhaps a fiction novel.