Synopses & Reviews
Review
"William Lloyd Garrison has a special and continuing meaning in the American imagination. This book raises significant questions about his life, tactics, and commitment that still resonate in the body politic."—Robert H. Abzug, University of Texas at Austin
Review
“William Lloyd Garrisons historical significance and legacy remain fiercely contested, and the two hundredth anniversary of his birth provides a propitious time to reassess the life of the man who helped to make slavery an inescapable moral issue.”—Steven Mintz, Columbia University
Synopsis
William Lloyd Garrison (1805-79) was one of the most militant and uncompromising abolitionists in the United States. As the editor of the abolitionist paper
The Liberator and cofounder of the American Anti-Slavery Society, Garrison spent most of his life arguing against slavery on strictly moral grounds. This engrossing book presents six essays that reevaluate Garrison's legacy, his accomplishments, and his limitations.
Eminent scholars--David W. Blight, Bruce Laurie, James Brewer Stewart, Richard J. M. Blackett, and Lois A. Brown--and a distinguished journalist, Lloyd McKim Garrison, who is Garrison's direct descendant, reflect on Garrison as a political activist, an internationalist, an advocate of feminism, and more. Together they present a new appraisal of one of America's most challenging, inspiring, and controversial historical figures.