Table of Contents

Preface

1. The Party
2. The Puritan
3. The Pioneer
4. The Patriarch
5. The Pauper
6. The Plan
7. Pottawatomie
8. Pariah and Legend
9. The Promoter
10. Plotting Multiculturally
11. Practice
12. Preparation
13. Problems
14. Pilloried, Prosecuted, and Praised
15. The Passion
16. Positions and Politics
17. The Prophet
18. Posterity

Notes
Acknowledgments
Index

About the Author

David S. Reynolds is Distinguished Professor of English and American Studies at the Graduate Center and Baruch College of the City University of New York. He received his B.A. from Amherst College and his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. He has taught at Rutgers University, New York University, Barnard College, and Northwestern University. His Walt Whitman's America won the Bancroft Prize, the Ambassador Book Award, and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Beneath the American Renaissance won Phi Beta Kappa's Christian Gauss.

Reviews

“Almost every page forces you to think hard, and in new ways, about American violence, American history, and what used to be called the American character.” –The New Yorker“A rich, nuanced and exhaustively researched ‘life and times’ that positions the abolitionist firmly in the context of 19th-century American culture. . . . Impeccably written.” –San Francisco Chronicle“Splendidly written. . . . Reynolds is that rarest of authors who knows how to write well and who successfully presents a life-size image of Brown, warts and all.” –Denver Post
“The most complete word on Brown as man and myth. . . . Nobody knows more about American society and culture in the first two-thirds of the 19th century than Reynolds. . . . Vivid and convincing. . . . The best volume we now have on that incendiary figure.”–The Providence Journal“Absorbing.”–New York Times Book Review“ This well-researched book . . . peels away some of the extreme interpretations of Brown and offers a generally balanced and objective assessment of why he should matter.”–St. Louis Post-Dispatch“Great sensitivity, thorough research, and some marvelous narrative.”–Washington Post Book World“A rich, nuanced and exhaustively researched ‘life and times’ that positions the abolitionist firmly in the context of 19th century American culture . . . impeccably written.”–San Francisco Chronicle“A masterful exploration of a fascinating, flawed character and his cultural impact.”–Atlanta Journal-Constitution“Absorbing, well written and beautifully documented.”–The Nation

In this biography of John Brown, Bancroft Prize-winning writer Reynolds (Walt Whitman's America) resurrects the man and the myth from the tangled controversies of his day and afterward that cast him variously as a madman, hero, prophet, and more. Placing his subject in the context of mid-19th-century America, Reynolds presents the Calvinist Brown as purposeful and prophetic in his understanding that only violence might purge America of its great sin of slavery. Much of the narrative covers well-tilled ground, but Reynolds's account of the Harpers Ferry raid brings the events alive as no other account has. More important, Reynolds follows the ways Americans later came to read and misread Brown's meanings through verse, literature, painting, song, and popular culture. If Reynolds misses a chance to add African-American folkloristic traditions to the trail of the Brown legend and sometimes claims too much for his subject's impact on ideas and events, he gets hold of him in ways that show why John Brown will never die in memory. Highly recommended for both public and academic libraries.-Randall M. Miller, Saint Joseph's Univ., Philadelphia Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

"Almost every page forces you to think hard, and in new ways, about American violence, American history, and what used to be called the American character." -The New Yorker"A rich, nuanced and exhaustively researched 'life and times' that positions the abolitionist firmly in the context of 19th-century American culture. . . . Impeccably written." -San Francisco Chronicle"Splendidly written. . . . Reynolds is that rarest of authors who knows how to write well and who successfully presents a life-size image of Brown, warts and all." -Denver Post
"The most complete word on Brown as man and myth. . . . Nobody knows more about American society and culture in the first two-thirds of the 19th century than Reynolds. . . . Vivid and convincing. . . . The best volume we now have on that incendiary figure."-The Providence Journal"Absorbing."-New York Times Book Review" This well-researched book . . . peels away some of the extreme interpretations of Brown and offers a generally balanced and objective assessment of why he should matter."-St. Louis Post-Dispatch"Great sensitivity, thorough research, and some marvelous narrative."-Washington Post Book World"A rich, nuanced and exhaustively researched 'life and times' that positions the abolitionist firmly in the context of 19th century American culture . . . impeccably written."-San Francisco Chronicle"A masterful exploration of a fascinating, flawed character and his cultural impact."-Atlanta Journal-Constitution"Absorbing, well written and beautifully documented."-The Nation