The author has an interesting approach, comparing two contemporaries who went down vastly different paths. I rather wish he'd chosen someone other than Abraham Lincoln to compare to John Brown though-- Lincoln is such a well-known and exceptional individual, it might have been more compelling to consider Brown's story alongside Nat Turner, William Lloyd Garrison, the Grimke sisters, or some other figure of the abolitionist movement. But it was still helpful and informative in understanding more of the context that led up to the Civil War.

Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for the opportunity to review a temporary digital ARC in exchange for an unbiased review.

I need to preface this review with this; I love Lincoln. He is my favorite [dead] President. I have been learning and reading about him since the third grade, when we first started studying the Presidents. I have read so many books on him and that was one of the reasons I requested this book. The other was that I know very little about John Brown [books on him are hard to come by] and he intrigues me immensely. What he did and believed is extraordinary, regardless if you feel what he did and believed what right. I was looking forward to this book to help me decide just that. I also love Nonfiction; my friends call me a nonfiction junkie and know that if it is a choice between a fictional novel about someone in real life and a nonfiction biography, autobiography etc on them, I will take the NF without even thinking about it.

All that said, this book was....dry. It was so, so, so, so, dry. I started it on the 1st and was only at 17% when I started it today around 4pm. By 8:30pm, I was only at 25% and was wishing I was reading anything but this. The stuff on John Brown was not anything that I couldn't find myself with a touch of research and everything on Lincoln has been covered in other books [and covered better IMO, especially by Doris Kearns Goodwin] and therefore was just repetitive to me and also dry. I think that this book is written for the more intellectual sorts, who don't immerse themselves in history and need more than just the cliff notes to get by in a conversation.

I cannot say that the research wasn't there, because it was. It was absolutely the execution and writing. It should not take over 4 hours to move 8% in a book. Ever. So, at 25%, I am giving it up. I cannot finish this, as much as I wanted to read it. I have seen in other reviews that people like this, but I, unfortunately, am not one of them.

Thank you to NetGalley and Doubleday Books for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book is a dual biography of specific time periods in the lives of John Brown and Abraham Lincoln. The book is well researched and well written as I have come to expect of the author as I have read several of his other books. As the title indicates the theme is the different paths that John Brown and Abraham Lincoln took in freeing the slaves in the United States. The most interesting part of the book for me was the detail on John Brown and his thoughts and convictions. I have read some about him, but not to the degree that the author covered here. There was also more focus on Lincoln's approach to the subject than is covered in many of the biographies that I have read. I recommend this book to anyone who had an interest in the two individuals and their unique approaches to addressing the slave situation in the United States.

I received a free Kindle copy of this book courtesy of Net Galley and the publisher with the understanding that I would post a review on Net Galley, Goodreads, Amazon and my nonfiction book review blog.