John L. Brooke, "'There Is a North': Fugitive Slaves, Political Crisis, and Cultural Transformation in the Coming of the Civil War" (U Mass Press, 2019)

New Books in African American Studies · Dec 3, 2019 · 1h 7m

How does political change take hold? In the 1850s, politicians and abolitionists despaired, complaining that the “North, the poor timid, mercenary, driveling North” offered no forceful opposition to the power of the slaveholding South. And yet, as John L. Brooke shows, the North did change. Inspired by brave fugitives who escaped slavery and the cultural craze that was Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the North rose up to battle slavery, ultimately waging the bloody Civil War. While Lincoln’s alleged quip about the little woman who started the big war has been oft-repeated, scholars have not fully…