John Brown's war against slavery

With this well-researched and compellingly written work, McGlone (Univ. of Hawai'i-Manoa) has ensured that any future studies of John Brown, slavery, and the sectional conflict will have to begin here. Employing a wealth of primary (some recently uncovered) and secondary works, McGlone's nuanced argument places the controversial Harper's Ferry Raid in the larger context of Brown's "war against slavery." Brown's abolitionism was of the nonresistant variety in early adulthood, but his foray to "Bleeding Kansas" sparked a sense of mission and destiny in Brown, which evolved into his plan to strike a blow against slavery in "Africa"--that is, the slaveholding South--itself. Making excellent use of insights from psychology, McGlone carries the discussion of Brown's mental state far beyond the superficial treatments of earlier works. These insights also inform the book's fascinating discussions of memory and its effects upon testimony and historical evidence. McGlone succeeds in avoiding the sensationalism and overt moralizing that often plagued earlier studies. The vast scope of its research, its attention to detail, its reasoned arguments about both its subject and evidence, and its clear prose make this book a model of historical scholarship. Summing Up: Essential. All levels/libraries. K. M. Gannon Grand View University

The insurrectionary abolitionist John Brown has been made a caricature of altruism, villainy and madness; this probing biographical study attempts a more integrated portrait. Drawing on detailed exegeses of Brown's letters and other writings, University of Hawaii historian McGlone closely scrutinizes a handful of critical events for clues to Brown's character and motives, including his puzzling and fatal dawdling for hours during the 1859 Harpers Ferry raid, until his escape routes were cut off. McGlone's sympathetic but critical portrait shows an intensely religious but not naOve or delusional man, a fanatical but rational abolitionist capable of ruthless violence, who adroitly used language and symbolism to transform himself from murderer to martyr. The author ties Brown's evolving mission to his religious beliefs, his concerns about his sprawling clan-fear they would be attacked partly motivated his massacre of proslavery settlers at Pottawatomie Creek-and, less convincingly, to conflicts stemming from his relationship with his domineering father. McGlone's prose can be dense, repetitive and larded with psychological analysis, but his careful research and nuanced, many-faceted analysis make this a valuable contribution to our understanding of Brown. (July) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved