David S. Reynolds is a Distinguished Professor at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He is the author or editor of 16 books, on subjects that include John Brown, Abraham Lincoln, Walt Whitman Andrew Jackson, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and the literary and popular culture of the American Renaissance. He is the winner of the Bancroft Prize, the Lincoln Prize, the Abraham Lincoln Book Prize, the Ambassador Book Award, the Christian Gauss Award, and a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award.
I wrote...
John Brown, Abolitionist: The Man Who Killed Slavery, Sparked the Civil War, and Seeded Civil Rights
By
David S. Reynolds
What is my book about?
A cultural biography of John Brown, the controversial abolitionist who used violent tactics against slavery before the Civil War and single-handedly changed the course of American history. Brown’s most violent acts—including his killing of proslavery settlers in Kansas and his historic raid on Harpers Ferry, Virginia--were inspired by the slave revolts, guerilla warfare, and revolutionary Christianity of the day. Viewed by Southerners as a satanic abolitionist and by many Northerners as a Christlike martyr who gave his life for Black people, Brown polarized the nation and ratcheted up the tensions between the sections. He permeated American culture during the Civil War and beyond, and he planted the seeds of the civil rights movement by making a pioneering demand for complete social and political equality for America’s ethnic minorities.
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The Books I Picked & Why
John Brown
By
W.E.B. Du Bois
Why this book?
First published in 1909, this succinct biography by a leading Black author and reformer spearheaded a tradition of appreciative commentary on Brown by African Americans. Brushing aside longstanding critiques of John Brown as a fiend, a fanatic, and a traitor, Du Bois explores the depth of Brown’s antislavery commitment and his willingness to sacrifice his own life in order to bring about the emancipation of Amerca’s 4 million enslaved people. Du Bois makes the memorable generalization: “John Brown was right.”
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Fire from the Midst of You: A Religious Life of John Brown
By
Louis A. Decaro Jr.
Why this book?
John Brown was a devout Calvinist who believed that God had chosen him to fight against slavery. In this stimulating book, Decaro provides us with the first full-scale religious biography of Brown, placing him in the context of nineteenth-century revivals and religiously inspired abolitionists. Decaro also explores Brown’s closeness to African Americans and his debt to Black militants such as David Walker, Denmark Vesey, and Henry Highland Garnet.
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The Tribunal: Responses to John Brown and the Harpers Ferry Raid
By
John Stauffer,
Zoe Trodd
Why this book?
This skillfully edited anthology of contemporary responses to Brown lets us experience firsthand the controversies surrounding Brown during his lifetime. Reprinted in this volume are dozens of 19th-century writings--letters, speeches, articles, poems, diary entries--that demonstrate just how central John Brown was to the cultural and political life of his time. Included in the book are writings about Brown by some of the century's most notable people: Abraham Lincoln, Walt Whitman, Henry Ward Beecher, Jefferson Davis, Herman Melville, Stephen Douglas, Louisa May Alcott, Victor Hugo, and Karl Marx, to name a few.
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Patriotic Treason: John Brown and the Soul of America
By
Evan Carton
Why this book?
Engagingly written, this book humanizes John Brown by portraying him as a man “of deep, varied, and sometime conflicting capacities.” Carton describes Brown’s family, business failures, friendships, and deep Calvinistic faith. By fledging out the human picture, Carton challenges simple categorizations of Brown as bipolar, obsessive-compulsive, or criminally insane. Carton places Brown against the background of debates over politics, slavery, and racial issues.
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The Zealot and the Emancipator: John Brown, Abraham Lincoln, and the Struggle for American Freedom
By
H.W. Brands
Why this book?
This dual biography contrasts two approaches to toppling slavery: vigilante violence, represented by John Brown; and the political approach, taken by Abraham Lincoln. Brands shows how Lincoln recoiled from Brown’s militant strategy in the interest of getting elected even though he shared Brown’s hatred of slavery. Although Lincoln initially condemned Brown’s violence, as commander in chief he directed a war that witnessed carnage that even John Brown couldn’t have imagined.
