Amazon.com Review
Born in poverty, and self-educated while working in a print shop, William Lloyd Garrison was one of the United States' greatest crusading editors, putting out a weekly anti-slavery newspaper,
The Liberator, for 35 years, beginning in 1831. A product of the rough and tumble political journalism of the day, Garrison wrote with extreme passion and from an uncompromising point of view. Yet the man who emerges from the pages of
All on Fire is a deeply thoughtful person who, despite barely escaping lynch mobs himself, had a great sense of humor and a very polite demeanor. Historians have tended to minimize Garrison's impact on America, and some consider him a fringe character. But Henry Meyer, in this hefty biography, places Garrison at the center of his century, noting that Garrison's thought and tactics influenced not only the country's changing view of slavery, but also inspired the incipient feminist movement. The Lincoln administration noted Garrison's influence by inviting him to help raise the flag over the recaptured Fort Sumter.
All on Fire goes into great detail on Garrison's life and work, providing the close and copious examination this activist's life fully deserves.
--Robert McNamara
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
Dead for almost 120 years, Garrison (1805-1879) tends to be caricatured in U.S. history books, if he's mentioned at all. That caricature shows a single-issue fanatic who had right on his side but possibly did more harm than good by agitating abolitionists and slavery advocates alike. Garrison was raised largely by his mother, a Baptist who marched "through life with 'high views' of its duties, and with the firmness of a Christian soldier." For her son, once roused by the Quaker Benjamin Lundy to the evils of slavery, there could be no compromise. There must be complete, immediate emancipation grounded in the U.S. Constitution. Anything less would cheapen human life and national dignity. Mayer's triumph is to show Garrison as a complicated human being, a fanatic to be sure, but one with a devoted family, a sense of humor and a brilliance of mind unexpected of one with so little formal education. Mayer, an independent historian living in Berkeley, Calif., and author of a biography of Patrick Henry (Son of Thunder), has done impressive research, especially in his use of Garrison's Boston-based newspaper, the Liberator, to explain its editor. The writing is first rate, and Mayer bucks contemporary trends by both his relentless adherence to chronology and his generous assessment of his subject. Few historians make the past more accessible than Mayer has.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
