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The Abolition of Man
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The Beautiful Soul of John Woolman, Apostle of Abolition
A biography of the famous eighteenth-century Quaker whose abolitionist fervor and spiritual practice made him a model for generations of Americans John Woolman (1720–72) was perhaps the most significant American of his age, though he was not a famous politician, general, or man of letters, and never held public office. A humble Quaker tailor in New Jersey, he became a prophetic voice for the entire Anglo-American world when he denounced the evils of slavery in Quaker meetings, then in essays and his Journal, first published in 1774. In this illuminating new biography, Thomas P. Slaughter goes behind those famous texts to locate the sources of Woolman’s political and spiritual power. Slaughter’s penetrating work shows how this plainspoken mystic transformed himself into a prophetic, unforgettable figure. Devoting himself to extremes of self-purification—dressing only in white, refusing to ride horses or in horse-drawn carriages—Woolman might briefly puzzle people; but his preaching against slavery, rum, tea, silver, forced labor, war taxes, and rampant consumerism was infused with a benign confidence that ordinary people could achieve spiritual perfection, and this goodness gave his message persuasive power and enduring influence. Placing Woolman in the full context of his times, Slaughter paints the portrait of a hero—and not just for the Quakers, social reformers, labor organizers, socialists, and peace advocates who have long admired him. He was an extraordinary original, an American for the ages. .
Price: $17.99
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Disunion!: The Coming of the American Civil War, 1789-1859 (Littlefield History of the Civil War Era)
In the decades before the Civil War, Americans debating the fate of slavery often invoked the specter of disunion to frighten or discredit their opponents. According to Elizabeth Varon, "disunion" was a startling and provocative keyword in Americans' political vocabulary: it connoted the failure of the founders' singular effort to establish a lasting representative government. For many Americans in both the North and the South, disunion was a nightmare, the image of a cataclysm that would reduce them to misery and fratricidal war. For many others, however, threats, accusations, and intimations of disunion were instruments they could wield to achieve their partisan and sectional goals. In this bracing reinterpretation of the origins of the Civil War, Varon blends political history with intellectual and cultural history to show how Americans, as far back as the earliest days of the republic, agonized and strategized over disunion. She focuses not only on politicians but also on a wide range of reformers, editors, writers, and commentators. Included here are the voices of fugitive slaves, white Southern dissenters, free black activists, abolitionist women, and other outsiders to the halls of power. In a new and expanding nation still learning how to meld disparate and powerful interests, the rhetoric of disunion proved pervasive--and volatile. As the word was marshaled by competing sectional interests in the tumultuous 1840s and 1850s, the politics of compromise grew more remote and an epic collision between the free North and slaveholding South seemed the only way to resolve, once and for all, whether the struggling republic would survive..
Price: $18.81
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Abolition Democracy: Beyond Prisons, Torture, and Empire Interviews with Angela Y. Davis (Open Media)
"Professor Angela Y. Davis is an unstoppable force of nature."-The Portland Alliance Revelations about US policies and practices of torture and abuse have captured headlines ever since the breaking of the Abu Ghraib prison story in April 2004. Since then, a debate has raged regarding what is and what is not acceptable behavior for the world's leading democracy. It is within this context that African American intellectual Angela Davis gave a series of interviews to discuss resistance and law, institutional sexual coercion, politics, and prison. Davis talks about her own incarceration, her experiences as an "enemy of the state," and about having been put on the FBI's most wanted list. She talks about the crucial role that international activism played in her case and the cases of many other political prisoners. Throughout these interviews, Angela Davis returns to her critique of a democracy that has been compromised by its racist origins and institutions. Discussing the most recent disclosures about the disavowed "chain of command" and the formal reports by the Red Cross and Human Rights Watch denouncing US violation of human rights and the laws of war in Guantánamo, Afghanistan, and Iraq, Davis focuses on the underpinnings of prison regimes in the United States. Angela Yvonne Davis is a professor of history of consciousness at the University of California Santa Cruz. Over the last 30 years, she has been active in numerous organizations challenging prison-related repression. Her advocacy on behalf of political prisoners led to three capital charges, 16 months in jail awaiting trial, and a highly publicized campaign, then acquittal, in 1972. Her books include Are Prisons Obsolete?; Blues Legacies and Black Feminism: Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday; and forthcoming from Random House, Prisons and Democracy. .
Price: $6.90
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Animals as Persons: Essays on the Abolition of Animal Exploitation
A prominent and respected philosopher of animal rights law and ethical theory, Gary L. Francione is known for his criticism of animal welfare laws and regulations, his abolitionist theory of animal rights, and his promotion of veganism and nonviolence as the baseline principles of the abolitionist movement. In this collection, Francione advances the most radical theory of animal rights to date. Unlike Peter Singer, Francione maintains that we cannot morally justify using animals under any circumstances, and unlike Tom Regan, Francione's theory applies to all sentient beings, not only to those who have more sophisticated cognitive abilities. .
Price: $27.50
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Subversives: Antislavery Community in Washington, D.C., 1828-1865 (Antislavery, Abolition, and the Atlantic World)
"An excellent study of the antislavery struggle in the streets and black alleys of Washington, D.C. The book is exceptionally well constructed The argument is clear and easy to follow."-American Historical Review While many scholars have examined the slavery disputes in the halls of Congress, Subversives is the first history of practical abolitionism in the streets, homes, and places of business of the nation's capital. Historian Stanley Harrold looks beyond resolutions, platforms, and debates to describe how desperate African Americans - both free and slave - and sympathetic whites engaged in a dangerous day-to-day campaign to drive the "peculiar institution" out of Washington, D.C., and the Chesapeake region. That slavery was both vulnerable and vicious in Washington is at the heart of Harrold's study. Northern and foreign visitors were outraged by its existence in the seat of American government. For the South, Washington was a vital stronghold at the section's border. As economic changes caused slavery's decline in the Chesapeake and masters dismembered slave families by selling them South, local African Americans sought and received the support of a small number of whites eager to strike a blow against slavery in a strategic and very symbolic setting. Together they formed a subversive community that flourished in and about the city from the late 1820s through the mid-1860s. Risking beatings, mob violence, imprisonment, and death, these men and women distributed abolitionist literature, purchased the freedom of slaves, sued to prevent families from being separated, and aided escape efforts. Harrold overcomes the secrecy inherent in Washington's antislavery community to document its formation and activities with remarkable detail and perception. He shows how slaveholders and their sympathizers fought to reinforce their hold on a system under attack and how the dissidents raised a radical challenge to the existing social order simply by engaging in interracial cooperation. While some subversives held power as politicians and journalists, most were obscure individuals. Black and white women played an important role. PRAISE FOR THE BOOK "An excellent study of the antislavery struggle in the streets and black alleys of Washington, D.C. The book is exceptionally well constructed. The argument is clear and easy to follow."-American Historical Review "Compelling reading. Focusing on antislavery battles below the Mason-Dixon line, Harrole masterfully recasts well-known historical incidents . . . withing a southern context. With Subversives Harrold has placed the discussion of assisted flight from the slave South nearer to the center of antislavery studies."-Journal of African American History.
Price: $16.50
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Slave Ship Sailors and Their Captive Cargoes, 1730-1807
Despite the vast literature on the transatlantic slave trade, the role of sailors aboard slave ships has remained unexplored. This book fills that gap by examining every aspect of their working lives, from their reasons for signing on a slaving vessel, to their experiences in the Caribbean and the American South after their human cargoes had been sold. It explores how they interacted with men and women of African origin at their ports of call, from the Africans they traded with, to the free black seamen who were their crewmates, to the slaves and ex-slaves they mingled with in the port cities of the Americas. Most importantly, it questions their interactions with the captive Africans they were transporting during the dread middle passage, arguing that their work encompassed the commoditisation of these people ready for sale..
Price: $17.66
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The River Flows On: Black Resistance, Culture, and Identity Formation in Early America (Antislavery, Abolition, and the Atlantic World)
The River Flows On is an impressively broad study of slave resistance in America, spanning the colonial and antebellum eras in both the North and South and covering all forms of recalcitrance, from major revolts and rebellions to everyday acts of disobedience. Walter C. Rucker analyzes American slave resistance with a keen understanding of its African influences while he also traces the emergence of an African American identity, orientation, consciousness, and culture. Rucker identifies African ethnic enclaves throughout the original thirteen colonies that produced unique modes of resistance, but he also points to the shared cultural heritage that facilitated collective action among both African- and American-born slaves. The ubiquitous belief in conjure and spiritual forces, the importance of martial dance and the drum, and ideas about the afterlife and transmigration all served as cultural bridges and fostered a sense of solidarity among slaves. Focusing on the role of African cultural and sociopolitical forces, Rucker gives in-depth attention to the 1712 New York City revolt, the 1739 Stono rebellion in South Carolina, the 1741 New York conspiracy, Gabriel Prosser's 1800 Richmond slave plot, and Denmark Vesey's 1822 Charleston scheme. He concludes with Nat Turner's 1831 revolt in Southampton, Virginia, which bore the marks of both conjure and Christianity, reflecting a new, African American consciousness. More than a basic human reaction to oppressive circumstances, slave resistance in early America was distinctly rooted in multiple strands of African ethnic heritage. With rich evidence drawn from anthropology, archaeology, and religion, The River Flows On is both innovative and convincing..
Price: $22.95
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