John Brown, Abolitionist: The Man Who Killed Slavery, Sparked the Civil War, and Seeded Civil Rights Book

Being born and raised in Kansas, it is perhaps no surprise that I've always thought the struggle for Kansas's status as a free or slave state was a significant part of what brought about the Civil War. But in an era when Confederate flag enthusiasts are suddenly insisting that the Civil War wasn't fought over slavery, it was high time I finally read this book my father had lent me about Brown, and the events sparking the Civil War.

(Spoiler alert: My dad isn't getting this book back.)

I loved this book. And it quickly became a refuge for me in a year of partisan election year bickering and mass shootings and too frequent news of black people being shot by the police. It was odd to me how intensely fond I became of Brown, even though I've never been a fan of Calvinism, and what religious feelings I do have urge me towards pacifism. Reynolds makes a strong case here for Brown as the first non-racist white American. To oppose slavery not just because it is happening to some poor creature, but because it was happening to your brother -- is it any wonder he ended up taking up arms?

While racism against black people is certainly the cause we most associate with Brown, his radicalism went much further. In planning for the possibility that his assault on southern slave-holding states could lead to the dissolution of the government, Brown and a council of his carefully gathered community wrote a new constitution that established the full equality of all people -- blacks, Indians, women.

I also appreciated this style of "cultural biography," which examined the cultures that shaped Brown, and then how he transcended and transformed those cultures. Like any excellent book, I am left wanting to know much more -- about the Transcendentalists, about Whitman, about Lincoln, etc., etc.