The image of a scorpion surrounded by a ring of fire, stinging itself to death, was widespread among antislavery leaders before the Civil War. It captures their long-standing strategy for peaceful abolition: they would surround the slave states with a cordon of freedom, constricting slavery and inducing the social crisis in which the peculiar institution would die. The image opens a fresh perspective on antislavery and the coming of the Civil War, brilliantly explored here by one of our greatest historians of the period.
Rezensionen / Stimmen
"Offers the best explication of the long history by which Americans embraced the legitimacy of military emancipation, and it offers great insight into the debate over which took precedence: the natural right to property or the natural right to freedom." -- Ira Berlin - Washington Post "Beautifully argued and succeeds in telling us new things about a heavily explored topic." -- Mark M. Smith - Wall Street Journal "In The Scorpion's Sting, Oakes surveys the legal doctrines that enabled President Abraham Lincoln to envision and then enact the Emancipation Proclamation...[It] will lead readers to reflect on the degree to which international law might hold significant implications for the American system of government." -- Walter Russell Mead - Foreign Affairs "A brilliant book that will force even the most veteran student of antebellum America to rethink previously held assumptions about emancipation." -- Erik J. Chaput - Providence Journal "In four swift, clear strokes, James Oakes has rewritten the history of emancipation in the United States." -- Allen C. Guelzo "If any reader still questions whether the Civil War was about slavery, this book overcomes all doubts." -- James McPherson "Incisive, imaginative, surprising, completely original-everything that one would expect from the most eminent historian of emancipation." -- Eric J. Sundquist "In clear prose and with searing insight, James Oakes recovers the moral urgency and strategic vision behind the Republican drive to undermine the slave system. A work of great depth and empathy." -- Alan Taylor
Sprache
Verlagsort
Maße
Höhe: 210 mm
Breite: 140 mm
Dicke: 12 mm
Gewicht
ISBN-13
978-0-393-35121-7 (9780393351217)
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Schweitzer Klassifikation
James Oakes is one of our foremost Civil War historians and a two-time winner of the Lincoln Prize for his works on the politics of abolition. He teaches at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.
Autor*in
City University of New York Graduate Center
