It was sung at Ronald Reagan's funeral, and adopted with new lyrics by labor radicals. John Updike quoted it in the title of one of his novels, and George W. Bush had it performed at the memorial service in the National Cathedral for victims of September 11, 2001. Perhaps no other song has held such a profoundly significant--and contradictory--place in America's history and cultural memory than the "The Battle Hymn of the Republic." In this sweeping study, John Stauffer and Benjamin Soskis...

At a time when slavery was spreading and the country was steeped in racism, two white men and two black men overcame social barriers and mistrust to form a unique alliance that sought nothing less than the end of all evil. Drawing on the largest extant bi-racial correspondence in the Civil War era, John Stauffer braids together these men's struggles to reconcile ideals of justice with the reality of slavery and oppression. Who could imagine that Gerrit Smith, one of the richest men in the ...

Finalist for the Gilder Lehrman Lincoln PrizeA landmark and collectible volume—beautifully produced in duotone—that canonizes Frederick Douglass through historic photography.Commemorating the bicentennial of Frederick Douglass’s birthday and featuring images discovered since its original publication in 2015, this “tour de force” (Library Journal, starred review) reintroduced Frederick Douglass to a twenty-first-century audience. Fr...

**The second volume in a landmark story collection that redefines what we thought we knew about the great American literary formA diverse, unprecedented gathering of more than one hundred stories, representing work by fifty different writers**As much a nineteenth-century American invention as the cotton gin and the steamboat, the short story emerged here with a range of innovation and a variety of styles and subjects that has still not been fully appreciated. Diverse, wide-...

“My Bondage and My Freedom,” writes John Stauffer in his Foreword, “[is] a deep meditation on the meaning of slavery, race, and freedom, and on the power of faith and literacy, as well as a portrait of an individual and a nation a few years before the Civil War.” As his narrative unfolds, Frederick Douglass—abolitionist, journalist, orator, and one of the most powerful voices to emerge from the American civil rights movement—transforms himself from slave to fugitive to reformer, l...

New York Times bestselling author Sally Jenkins and distinguished Harvard professor John Stauffer mine a nearly forgotten piece of Civil War history and strike gold in this surprising account of the only Southern county to secede from the Confederacy.The State of Jones is a true story about the South during the Civil War—the real South. Not the South that has been mythologized in novels and movies, but an authentic, hardscrabble place whe...

The campaign to abolish slavery in the United States was the most powerful and effective social movement of the nineteenth century and has served as a recurring source of inspiration for every subsequent struggle against injustice. But the abolitionist story has traditionally focused on the evangelical impulses of white, male, middle-class reformers, obscuring the contributions of many African Americans, women, and others.Prophets of Protest, the first collection of writin...

"These essays will change our understanding not only of abolitionism, but of American society itself." —Eric Foner, Pulitzer Prize–winning authorThe campaign to abolish slavery in the United States was the most powerful and effective social movement of the nineteenth century and has served as a recurring source of inspiration for every subsequent struggle against injustice. But the abolitionist story has traditionally focused on the evangelical impulses of white, m...

During Reconstruction, former abolitionists in the North had a golden opportunity to pursue true racial justice and permanent reform in America. But after the sacrifice made by thousands of Union soldiers to arrive at this juncture, the moment soon slipped away, leaving many whites throughout the North and South more racist than before. Edward J. Blum takes a fresh look at the reasons for this failure in Reforging the White Republic, focusing on the vital role that religion played in reuni...

A new collection of the seminal writings and speeches of a legendary writer, orator, and civil rights leaderThis compact volume offers a full course on the remarkable, diverse career of Frederick Douglass, letting us hear once more a necessary historical figure whose guiding voice is needed now as urgently as ever. Edited by renowned scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and Pulitzer Prize–nominated historian John Stauffer, The Portable Frederick Douglass includ...

"No people are more talked about and no people seem more imperfectly understood. Those who see us every day seem not to know us."—Frederick Douglass on African Americans"There is no negro problem. The problem is whether the American people have loyalty enough, honor enough, patriotism enough, to live up to their own constitution."—on civil rights"Woman should have justice as well as praise, and if she is to dispense with either, she can better afford to part with the latter...

The abolitionists of the mid-nineteenth century have long been painted in extremes--vilified as reckless zealots who provoked the catastrophic bloodletting of the Civil War, or praised as daring and courageous reformers who hastened the end of slavery. But Andrew Delbanco sees abolitionists in a different light, as the embodiment of a driving force in American history: the recurrent impulse of an adamant minority to rid the world of outrageous evil.Delbanco imparts to the reader a ...