When I was twenty, I decided to hitchhike across the African continent, more or less following the line of the Equator, from the Indian Ocean to the Atlantic. I packed only one pair of sandals and one pair of jeans to make room for the three hefty books I had decided to read from cover to cover: Don Quixote, Moby Dick, and From Slavery to Freedom, by John Hope Franklin. I read the latter—the black and white bound third edition of the book—while recovering from a severe bout of amoebic dysentery sailing down the Congo River. It became such a valued reference for me that I kept it, for years, in the bookcase at my bedside.