Merton Lynn Dillon (1924–2013)

This is a very readable, straight-forward history of the American abolitionist movement. It begins touching briefly on the anti-Slavery feeling among a relative few in America during and just after the American Revolution, but spends most of its time during the four decades leading up to the Civil War. It seems to me that the book provides a fine introduction to the topic, and I learned a lot that was interesting to me, such as the extent to which many of the leading proponents of ending slavery came from the evangelical movement, the degree to which organized religion as a whole turned its back on the problem and the degree to which Southern over-reaction to the actions and words of the relatively few vocal abolitionists and their shrill insistence on spreading slavery into the new territories did at least as much to harm their own cause as the most effective abolitionist campaigners might have. Not have read much on the topic, this book came as a welcome reading experience for me. It does not, however, go into much depth about, for example, the personalities of the leading abolitionists or their individual motivations. Also, as this book was published in 1974, there may well be more recent and revealing scholarship on these topics by now. Finally, unless and until I read further on the topic, there's no way for me to know how comprehensive an account this is. Nevertheless, I consider this a valuable book for anyone, like me, who had only the most general knowledge of what the abolitionist movement was about, what it did and did not accomplish, and why. As I mentioned, it is quite readable. Nothing fancy, but it flows nicely.… (mer)