Reviews for Purge This Land W/Blood

The average rating for Purge This Land W/Blood based on 2 reviews is 5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2016-06-23 00:00:00 John Lee At a time when even most abolitionists were strident racists, wanting nothing so much as to send blacks "back" to Africa, John Brown took seriously the biblical injunction that all men are brothers, as well as the language of the Declaration that "all men are created equal." To Brown slavery was indefensible, not just because it denied the freedom which is the right of every man, each equally created an image of God, but also because the institution corrupted the soul of both the slave and the slaveholder. Oates biography does not gloss over Brown's failings or his megalomania, but still conveys the powerful presence of a man who was able to convince twenty others to join him on a doomed assault to liberate slaves. After meeting Brown, the great Frederick Douglas said Brown, "though a white gentleman, was in sympathy, a black man, and as deeply interested in our cause, as though his own soul had been pierced with the iron of slavery." As galvanizing as Brown's raid was in the South, his statements at his trial and letters while awaiting hanging had a similar effect in the North. Taken in total, Brown's role in the Pottawatomie Massacre, his raid to free slaves in Missouri, the raid at Harper's Ferry and his words (spoken and written) after his capture at Harper's Ferry probably did more than any other single person to bring about the Civil War and as a result, the emancipation of the slaves. Oates' biography is essential reading to understand that aspect of American history. "I see a book kissed, which I suppose to be the Bible, or at least the New Testament, which teaches me that all things whatsoever I would that men should do to me, I should do to them. It teaches me further that to remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them. I endeavor to act upon that instruction. I say I am yet too young to understand that God is any respecter of persons. I believe that to interfered as I have done with his despised poor, is no wrong, but right. Now if it is deemed necessary that I should forfeit my life for the furtherance of the ends of justice, and mingle my blood with the blood of millions in this slave country whose rights are disregarded by wicked, cruel and unjust enactments, I say, let it be done." John Brown, at his sentencing hearing.

Review # 2 was written on 2016-07-31 00:00:00 Cindy Pigg I recently became interested in John Brown, the man, after doing a section hike of the Appalachian trail, and passing through Harper's Ferry - site of his raid which helped to precipitate the Civil War. I wanted a thorough, yet balanced biography, one that does more than simply uphold commonly held caricatures. I desired to have a clear snapshot of the times in which he lived, how he thought, and something of what motivated his actions. This biography by historian, Stephen B. Oates, does all that and more. It is well-researched, thoroughly objective, and empathetic without being fawning. I highly recommend it to anyone who interested in is this period in American history, and/or the character of John Brown.