The publisher's description may make this title seem like it could be a bit of a slog, but let me assure you that this is a very lively account of the intellectual underpinnings of the abolitionist movement. For me the most surprising aspect of the movement was that it defied the organized religions of both the north and the south, and that key movement leaders - Frederick Douglass, the near heretic minister Theodore Parker (learning about him was reason enough to read this book), Abraham Lincoln, and others - were free thinkers, pantheists, or perhaps even closeted atheists. The abolitionists are also seen as part of the revolutionary movements of 1848, and heavily influenced by German philosophers (particularly the new to me Ludwig Feuerbach who essentially said that man created god) as well as a number of German exiles (the 48ers). Based solely on the evidence presented in this book, I actually question whether these philosophers had the influence author Stewart credits them with, or if they simply validated positions which many of the abolitionists had already reached. Nevertheless, there is a bust of Feuerbach still to be found in Washington D.C's Frederick Douglass House.

In Stewart's telling the slaveholding oligarchy of the south was a counter-revolutionary movement that rolled back basic rights in the south (forbidding free speech if it involved condemnation of slavery), and used religious justification and racism to lure economically deprived white voters to their cause. If this sounds familiar to the reader it's not an accident. Here's a quote describing Theodore Parker's ideas:

The ultimate target of extreme wealth, Parker comes to understand, is reason itself. The gag rules, the censorship, the disdain for higher education, and above all the relentless attacks on religious infidelity follow from the elemental fact that reason can never support the participation of a whole society in its own impoverishment. So long as reason is against the oligarchs, the oligarchs will be against reason.

These ideas from 170 years ago haven't aged a bit.

I did say this book was lively, and I'll even say it can be entertaining and humorous at times. But be warned that there is one chapter describing the philosophy of the Germans - especially the section on Hegel - that is difficult. The philosophy-trained author may differ, but I believe that you can gloss over that section and still get plenty out of this title. This is a very highly recommended book that sheds light on the lead up to the civil war as well as on our own times; even if history isn't repeating itself there are certainly plenty of rhymes.

Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for giving me a egalley for early review. It's truly a privilege to be the first reviewer of this title on goodreads; I look forward to seeing what others have to say.

This was a really interesting and deep book. I have a pretty good background in antebellum US history, and I found myself learning new things on almost every page. That being said, I thought that the organization of the text left a little to be desired. The book started with a look at German philosophy's impact on major players in American politics and thought, but then detoured for several chapters to be pretty exclusively about biblical interpretations by the pro- and anti-slavery sides. When those continental philosophers rejoined the conversation, I found myself having to go back to Chapter 1 to refresh my memory on who all of those people were. That brings me to the other minor critique I had. In a book like this, with this many names, it would have been helpful for the author to occasionally remind the reader, very briefly, who some of these folks were. There is a lot of name-dropping going on, but I found myself getting a bit lost in the sea of names. Even an Odyssey-style use of epithets could have greased the wheels here. Overall, though, a really engaging and enlightening book about a topic (I thought) I pretty much knew the contours of.