The Abolitionists: The Growth of a Dissenting Minority (Minorities in American History) [Paperback]

Merton Lynn Dillon (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: 1974

Few seem to have engaged as much fervid attention and historical controversy in recent years as the role of the abolitionists and affecting the drift of events in pre-Civil War America. Indeed the impressive volume and high quality of the historical literature is devoted to that dissenting minority and to related themes has created an acute need for an authoritative synthesis that would integrate and assimilate the latest scholarship in the field. Now Merton Dillon has provided us with such a work. A ranking authority, he is saturated in the literature and in the sources of the abolitionist era. He has written a book that in its sustained narrative sweep captures the spirit of his protagonists and of that age. At the same time, he retained a balanced appreciation of the limitations of the abolitionists no less than their virtues. The relationship to other reformers, two black abolitionists, to the full spectrum of abolitionism, to a developing racism, and to the changing psychology and temper of succeeding decades is spelled out with quiet eloquence and rare scholarly breadth. While this study conveys the immediacy of the universal contemporary involvement with the race question, a mood revived for the first time in nearly a century, at no point does Dillon and folk the past as simple witness to the prevailing scene. Although his work speaks to us with unusual power and depth, describable in part at least to his old sober but passionate involvement with the current scene, and no sense does it pretend to directly link the abolitionists with their putative counterparts in the present. - Moses Rischin (excerpt from book's Foreword

Product Details

• Paperback: 298 pages
• Publisher: Northern Illinois University Press (1974)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0875805132
• ISBN-13: 978-0875805139
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15 ounces
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,746,309 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.