Customer Reviews

Purge This Land W/Blood -2nd E

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If you were, like I was, taught that John Brown was not much more than a well-meaning madman then you don't know the John Brown of history. Oates does a great job of dispelling that myth as well as presenting for the first time the full picture, thoroughly footnoted, of the man who may have sparked the Civil War. I have small gripes with some of the text, but none worth mentioning here. Read it and be impressed.

Who was John Brown and what made him tick? And what was his significance or importance in the pre-Civil War USA?

Most readers are probably aware Brown led a raid on government property at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. The raid's goal was to cause slaves to rebel and to establish a free state in the southern Appalachians. Some might also know that several years earlier he had been a participant in a bloody guerrilla war in Kansas in which Brown's followers killed five people at Pottawatomie Creek.

But it was the Harpers Ferry raid that not only led to his hanging but also shaped his lasting reputation. But how to assess that reputation? Not an easy question. To some he was a crazy terrorist. Others view him as a militant aboltionist determined to bring an end to the institution of slavery even if this resulted in blood being shed.

In this full length biography, Stephen B. Oates narrates Brown's life and seeks to understand the man in the context of his times. He is not writing to praise or damn Brown, which separates him from most others who have written about him. Yet, if the reader detects a somewhat favorable attitude or slant on the part of the author toward his subject, I would not disagree.

So what is Oates' take on Brown? He essentially sees him as an Old Testament/Calvinist fundamentalist who believed that slavery was a sin and, as such, should be done away with. Oates cautions against the previously quite common view of Brown as being "mad" or "crazy". Rather, Brown saw slavery as a horrible evil, as something that violated not only Christian teaching but also the principles upon which the country was founded. When non-violent attempts to do away with the institution were not successful (attempts that Brown had participated in), he concluded that slavery must be purged away with blood. Oates also strongly emphasizes that Brown firmly believed that even if his Harpers Ferry raid failed to lead to slaves revolting, it would be perceived as such a volatile act that civil conflict would follow, almost certainly resulting in slavery's demise. Too, in all his anti-slavery activities, Brown believed he was an instrument in the hands of God.

What were the consequences of Brown's raid and what is its significance? At the very least it led to tremendous fear in the slave states, fears of additional northern abolitionists coming down and attempting to cause servile insurrections. Yet the 1859 raid did not *immediately* at least cause a civil war. That event, the one that led directly to secession and war, was the elction of president Abraham Lincoln, who, by the way, went out of his way to condemn Brown's Harpers Ferry raid, if not Brown's belief that slavery was wrong. Still, it could be argued that Brown's prophecy was correct, for within two years of the raid a bloody civil war DID lead to the destruction of slavery.

In conclusion a few words about the author and book. I have long been an admirer of the writing of Stephen B. Oates, several of whose books I have read, re-read, and recommended. They are all extremely well written and make history come alive. I first read this book nearly four decades ago when it came out. As I am about to undertake a project of reading a couple anthologies about Brown, I decided to revisit this. It's almost as good as it was the first time. Right now it must be the best book on Brown by a historian. However, as I understand a major new work on Brown by a historian is apparently about to be published, I may revise this opinion.

Strongly recommended.
Tim Koerner, June 2009

Having read this author's biography of Lincoln (Malice Toward None) I was so impressed with his writing style and story telling that I wanted to stick with him.

This book reads well. I recommend it. I enjoyed it. The book reads like a novel and seemed fairly comprehensive, thought it's under 400 pages and moves along at a comfortable pace. It provides plenty of food for thought about Brown. Having always heard that Brown was a mad-man, I was pleased to find that his story is much more than that.

As far as dismissing John Brown as a crazy, consider how many renowned people of his day he befriended and persuaded to back his endeavors! Were they all crazy too?

The book revealed for me the political / social / religious dynamics of those wild times in a meaningful way. If the issue of John Brown comes up for discussion, I now feel confident to participate.

I read this book while in the US military during the Vietnam War. Having been raised in the US South I naturally had been taught that John Brown was a maniac. Partially because I was going through a very morally trying period in my own life, particularly related to the war and human rights in my own country and around the world, while reading this book I came to view Brown as a man who refused to peacefully coexist with what he considered to be intolerable evil and injustice.

The vast majority of people on Earth would find the notion that Brown was a "terrorist" to be absurd. African Americans, the descendants of the people who were the victims of what Brown was willing to give his life to destroy, overwhelmingly consider him a hero and freedom fighter. Those of his day, including Frederick Douglass, spoke highly of him. His name was sometimes invoked by leaders in the so-called civil right era of the '50s and '60s.

I highly recommend this book.

There are a lot of books on Brown, for good reason. He is a fascinating figure, a sort of mythical creature. Many books dumb this aspect down through their soggy prose and endless fact-logging, but the prose in this book is not too bad. Oates doesn't relate too much worthless information, which is common in the social sciences. I remember reading one Brown biography that debated whether his cabin was made out of pine or oak. Many historians cannot understand that not all pieces of information were created equal.

Seriously though, the prose here is decent and the history seems fairly accurate. There are some passages that are poetic in their way, and I was affected by many aspects of Brown's personality and U.S. History that Oates managed to describe quite well. Times of revolution can make for excellent reading, especially when the world today seems very difficult to change. Brown tried to change it, and in the minds of many, he did. So, for those unfamiliar with Brown, he makes for a good story.

It is obvious at times that Oates is angling to not "alienate" the Southern reader. He talks about how Southerners "had a right to be scared" and makes the argument that slavery-accepting Southerners were not such bad people, etc. Racism was widespread, only slightly less so in the North, so this is partially reasonable. However, there is hardly any material about how disgusting slavery really was. There are good reasons that John Brown was violently opposed. Basically, Oates is trying to be "balanced." What that means is he is giving both sides of the argument, even when one of them has been proven to be self-evidently stronger. Slavery was wrong, and it died out, and good riddance to the Southerners who accepted and perpetuated it.

If you want to read about how nasty slavery really was, and I recommend that you do if you are open-minded about judging characters such as Brown, then you can start with some of the slave narratives, for example the narratives of Frederick Douglass and Mary Prince.

John Brown was one of the few people who doesn't just stand around and watch while injustices abound. He acts, and that is the reason that many cannot stand him. He is a profoundly moral person, and that is threatening to people who are not. They cannot understand that it is better to kill a thousand men then to let millions rot in slavery.

Highly recommended, just don't get thrown off by the "balance."

If you're interested in the events that led to the Civil War, this is an excellent book. Oates is very thorough. Even though everyone knows the outcome, this work mostly reads like a novel. While the most important part is the raid on Harpers Ferry and its aftermath, the parts about John Brown's family and business life are also interesting. For example, land speculation and poor government policy led to a bubble that broke in 1837 (sounds familiar). The depression combined with his business incompetence led to Brown's bankruptcy. Brown was always mooching money.

As for Brown himself, the picture Oates paints is mixed. Brown was brave and had noble ideals, but he was simple, sometimes dishonest, and reckless with human life. The account of the Pottawatomie massacre should appall everyone. The raid on Harpers Ferry was a dreadful folly with no chance of success. Brown's only chance was to get slaves to help him, but if he had tipped them off in advance the southerners would have stopped the raid before it started.

There's a good chance Brown knew all along that the raid would fail, and intended to be a martyr who would spur a war to end slavery. Before the raid Brown wrote a justification that assumed the raid failed. If Brown intended to be a martyr, then he turned out to be prescient.

An excellent "first hand" account is Flashman and the Angel of the Lord. The author is both appalling and entertaining. His name was "removed" from the list of records for security reasons.

Also, if you're in the area Harpers Ferry is well worth visiting. It has great scenery and history.

In the preface of his book, author Oates states it is not his intention to determine the mental capabilities of his subject, abolitionist John Brown. But, he certainly paints a vivid enough picture so the reader can determine for himself if Brown is a crazy old coot, a cold blooded murderer, or a man on a mighty mission or a combination of all three. I had just read Cloudsplitter by Russell Banks (a fictionalized version of Brown's life; see my review) and it made me want to read a real biography of Brown. If anything, this book made me appreciate Banks' immagination even more. To Purge This Land with Blood is a very detailed account of Brown's life, maybe too detailed. Every character, no matter how inconsequential, is named. And this sea of names and places can be mindboggling. I found much of the book slow going and already knowing the outcome of Brown's life didn't compel me to move on quickly. But, after reading the book, I now believe I now know Brown. And isn't that the purpose of biography?

Please note that the substance of the following review has been used in the review of W.B. Dubois's book on John Brown reviewed elsewhere. Both books offer a good prospective on the life of John Brown and can be profitably read together. Dubois's book is a decent historical narrative of Brown's life from an earlier time and in a more partisan perspective. Oates book reflects more modern academic methods of analysis and research and tackles the weaknesses in other interpretations. In that sense, Oates book is close to the definitive study of John Brown's life. Most importantly, both books reflect a Northern view of Brown exploits previously long absent from the historical record. My review reflects the need to study an important American fighter for justice and for today's generation to learn some lessons from his life.


I would like to make a few comments on the role of Captain John Brown and his struggle at Harper's Ferry in 1859 in the history of the black liberation struggle. This is appropriate as I am writing this review during Black History Month of 2006. Unfortunately John Brown continues to remain one of the very few white heroes of the revolutionary struggle for black liberation.

From fairly early in my youth I knew the name John Brown and was swept up by the romance surrounding his exploits at Harpers Ferry. For example, I knew that the great anthem of the Civil War -The Battle Hymn of the Republic had a prior existence as a tribute to John Brown. I, however, was then neither familiar with the import of his exploits for the black liberation struggle nor knew much about the specifics of the politics of the various tendencies in the struggle against slavery. I certainly knew nothing then of Brown's (and his sons) prior military exploits in the Kansas wars against the expansion of slavery. If one understands the ongoing nature of his commitment to struggle one can only conclude that his was indeed a man on a mission. Those exploits also render absurd a very convenient myth about his `madness'. This is a political man and to these eyes a very worthy one. In the context of the turmoil of the times he was only the most courageous and audacious revolutionary in the struggle against slavery in America.

Whether or not John Brown knew that his strategy would, in the short term, be defeated is a matter of dispute. Reams of paper have been spent proving the military foolhardiness of his scheme at Harper's Ferry. This misses the essential political point that militant action- not continuing parliamentary maneuvering advocated by other abolitionists- had become necessary. What is not in dispute is that Brown considered himself a true Calvinist avenging angel in the struggle against slavery and more importantly acted on that belief. In short, he was committed to bring justice to the black masses. This is why his exploits and memory stay alive after over 150 years.

Brown and his small integrated band of brothers fought bravely and coolly against great odds. Ten of Brown's men were killed including two of his sons. Five were captured, tried and executed, including Brown. These results are almost inevitable when one takes up a revolutionary struggle against the old order and one is not victorious. One need only think of, for example, the fate of the defenders of the Paris Commune in 1871. One can fault Brown on this or that tactical maneuver. Nevertheless he and the others bore themselves bravely in defeat. As we are all too painfully familiar there are defeats of the oppressed that lead nowhere. One thinks of the defeat of the Chinese Revolution in the 1920's. There other defeats that galvanize others into action. This is how Brown's actions should be measured by history.

Militarily defeated at Harpers Ferry, Brown's political mission to destroy slavery by force of arms nevertheless continued to galvanize important elements in the North at the expense of the pacifistic non-resistant Garrisonian political program for struggle against slavery. Many writers on Brown who reduce his actions to that of a `madman' still cannot believe that his road proved more appropriate to end slavery than either non-resistance or gradualism. That alone makes short shrift of such theories. Historians and others have misinterpreted later events such as the Bolshevik strategy which led to Russian Revolution in October 1917. More recently, we saw this same incomprehension concerning the victory of the Vietnamese against overwhelming military superior forces. Needless to say, all these events continue to be revised by some historians to take the sting out of there proper political implications.