Library Catalog
Amazon cover image
Image from Amazon.com

The Abolitionist Imagination / Andrew Delbanco, Wilfred M McClay, Darryl Pinckney, Manisha Sinha, John Stauffer.

By: Contributor(s): Material type: TextTextSeries: The Alexis de Tocqueville Lectures on American PoliticsPublisher: Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press, [2012]Copyright date: ©2012Description: 1 online resourceContent type:
Media type:
Carrier type:
ISBN:
  • 9780674064447
  • 9780674064904
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 973.7/114
LOC classification:
  • E449
Other classification:
  • online - DeGruyter
Online resources: Available additional physical forms:
  • Issued also in print.
Contents:
Frontmatter -- Contents -- Foreword -- 1. THE ABOLITIONIST IMAGINATION / Delbanco, Andrew -- 2. FIGHTING THE DEVIL WITH HIS OWN FIRE / Stauffer, John -- 3. DID THE ABOLITIONISTS CAUSE THE CIVIL WAR? / Sinha, Manisha -- 4. THE INVISIBILITY OF BLACK ABOLITIONISTS / Pinckney, Darryl -- 5. ABOLITION AS MASTER CONCEPT / McClay, Wilfred M. -- 6. THE PRESENCE OF THE PAST / Delbanco, Andrew -- Notes -- About the Authors -- Index
Summary: The abolitionists of the mid-nineteenth century have long been painted in extremes--vilified as reckless zealots who provoked the catastrophic bloodletting of the Civil War, or praised as daring and courageous reformers who hastened the end of slavery. But Andrew Delbanco sees abolitionists in a different light, as the embodiment of a driving force in American history: the recurrent impulse of an adamant minority to rid the world of outrageous evil.Delbanco imparts to the reader a sense of what it meant to be a thoughtful citizen in nineteenth-century America, appalled by slavery yet aware of the fragility of the republic and the high cost of radical action. In this light, we can better understand why the fiery vision of the ";abolitionist imagination"; alarmed such contemporary witnesses as Herman Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne even as they sympathized with the cause. The story of the abolitionists thus becomes both a stirring tale of moral fervor and a cautionary tale of ideological certitude. And it raises the question of when the demand for purifying action is cogent and honorable, and when it is fanatic and irresponsible. Delbanco's work is placed in conversation with responses from literary scholars and historians. These provocative essays bring the past into urgent dialogue with the present, dissecting the power and legacies of a determined movement to bring America's reality into conformity with American ideals.
Holdings
Item type Current library Call number URL Status Notes Barcode
eBook eBook Biblioteca "Angelicum" Pont. Univ. S.Tommaso d'Aquino Nuvola online online - DeGruyter (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Online access Not for loan (Accesso limitato) Accesso per gli utenti autorizzati / Access for authorized users (dgr)9780674064904

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Foreword -- 1. THE ABOLITIONIST IMAGINATION / Delbanco, Andrew -- 2. FIGHTING THE DEVIL WITH HIS OWN FIRE / Stauffer, John -- 3. DID THE ABOLITIONISTS CAUSE THE CIVIL WAR? / Sinha, Manisha -- 4. THE INVISIBILITY OF BLACK ABOLITIONISTS / Pinckney, Darryl -- 5. ABOLITION AS MASTER CONCEPT / McClay, Wilfred M. -- 6. THE PRESENCE OF THE PAST / Delbanco, Andrew -- Notes -- About the Authors -- Index

restricted access online access with authorization star

http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_16ec

The abolitionists of the mid-nineteenth century have long been painted in extremes--vilified as reckless zealots who provoked the catastrophic bloodletting of the Civil War, or praised as daring and courageous reformers who hastened the end of slavery. But Andrew Delbanco sees abolitionists in a different light, as the embodiment of a driving force in American history: the recurrent impulse of an adamant minority to rid the world of outrageous evil.Delbanco imparts to the reader a sense of what it meant to be a thoughtful citizen in nineteenth-century America, appalled by slavery yet aware of the fragility of the republic and the high cost of radical action. In this light, we can better understand why the fiery vision of the ";abolitionist imagination"; alarmed such contemporary witnesses as Herman Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne even as they sympathized with the cause. The story of the abolitionists thus becomes both a stirring tale of moral fervor and a cautionary tale of ideological certitude. And it raises the question of when the demand for purifying action is cogent and honorable, and when it is fanatic and irresponsible. Delbanco's work is placed in conversation with responses from literary scholars and historians. These provocative essays bring the past into urgent dialogue with the present, dissecting the power and legacies of a determined movement to bring America's reality into conformity with American ideals.

Issued also in print.

Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.

In English.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 08. Jul 2019)