Rough Crossings is the astonishing story of the struggle to freedom by thousands of African American slaves who fled the plantations to fight behind British lines in the American War of Independence.

With gripping, powerfully vivid storytelling, Simon Schama follows the escaped blacks into the fires of the war and into freezing, inhospitable Nova Scotia, where many who had served the Crown were betrayed in their promises to receive land at the war's end. Their fate became entwined with British abolitionists: inspirational figures such as Granville Sharp, the flute-playing father-figure of slave freedom; and John Clarkson, the Moses of this great exodus, who accompanied the blacks on their final rough crossing to Africa, where they hoped that freedom would finally greet them.

Simon Schama is university professor of art history and history at Columbia University and the prize-winning author of 14 books, which have been translated into 20 languages. He has written widely on music, art, politics and food for the Guardian, Vogue and The New Yorker.

His award-winning television work as writer and presenter for the BBC stretches over two decades and includes the 15-part A History of Britain and the eight-part, Emmy-winning Power of Art.