I didn’t know anything about Charles Sumner but this book worked well in introducing the reader to this book. Zaakir Tameez had that element that I was looking for in this type of book and thought the overall research was there when reading. I hope Zaakir Tameez writes more like this as it was really well done.

Thank you, Henry Holt & Company, for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

I just finished Charles Sumner: Conscience Of A Nation, by Zaakir Tameez.

This book will be released on June 3, 2025.

This is the second new biography on Charles Sumner that I’ve read this year. In September, I gave The Great Abolitionist, by Stephen Puleo, an A. So, the bar was set high for this one.

One of the great things about history books is the little tidbits that are always contained in them. One example from this book is a quote from Marquis de Lafayette, decades after the Revolutionary War, in which he said, “I would never have raised my sword in the cause of America, if I could have conceived that thereby I was founding a land of slavery.”

Most of this book dealt with Sumner’s time in the US Senate, both as a leading abolitionist prior to the Civil War and then continuing through the war. During the war, Sumner was a huge advocate of remaking southern society in order to ensure the rights of the former slaves would be guaranteed and to prevent the same white supremacist class from retaking power. After the war, Sumner was one of the leaders in the efforts to get voting rights and civil rights for blacks.

I give this book an A.

Goodreads and NetGalley require grades on a 1-5 star system. In my personal conversion system, an A equates to 5 stars. (A or A+: 5 stars, B+: 4 stars, B: 3 stars, C: 2 stars, D or F: 1 star).

This review has been posted at NetGalley, Goodreads and my blog, Mr. Book’s Book Reviews

I finished reading this on November 29, 2024.