The Abolitionist Imagination
by Andrew Delbanco
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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 show more 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. show lessTags
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18+ Works 1,855 Members
Andrew Delbanco is the Mendelson Family Chair of American Studies and the Julian Clarence Levi Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University. His books include Melville: His World and Work (Vintage), which won the Lionel Trilling Award and was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in biography. He received the 2011 National show more Humanities Medal for his writing, which spans from the literature of Melville and Emerson to contemporary issues in higher education. show less
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- Canonical title
- The Abolitionist Imagination
Classifications
- Genres
- Nonfiction, History, Literature Studies and Criticism, General Nonfiction
- DDC/MDS
- 973.7 — History & geography History of North America United States Administration of Abraham Lincoln, 1861-1865 Civil War
- LCC
- E449 .D45 — History of the United States United States Revolution to the Civil War, 1775/1783-1861 Slavery in the United States. Antislavery
- BISAC
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- Members
- 31
- Popularity
- 898,246
- Rating
- (3.50)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 4
- ASINs
- 1
