The Slave's Cause

It is difficult to imagine a more comprehensive history of the abolitionist movement. . . . [Sinha] has given us a full history of the men and women who truly made us free. --Ira Berlin, New York Times Book Review Lucidly written, compellingly argued and based on exhaustive scholarship, The Slave's Cause captures the myriad aspects of this diverse and far-ranging movement and will deservedly take its place alongside the equally magisterial works of Ira Berlin on slavery and Eric Foner on the Reconstruction Era. Ms. Sinha seems to have read just about everything ever written on the subject of antislavery, including diaries, broadsides, speeches and legal arguments by the famous and the obscure alike. It is a measure of her command of the material that even as she leads us through the deepest thickets of antebellum polemics she is rarely dull. --Fergus Bordewich, Wall Street Journal A powerfully unfamiliar look at the struggle to end slavery in the United States. . . . The Slave's Cause is as multifaceted as the movement it chronicles. --Matthew Price, Boston Globe This well-written and accessible book has many strengths, but Sinha's able deployment of so many sources makes it outstanding. --Olivette Otele, Times Higher Education Manisha Sinha's comprehensive and narrative-resetting new book gives readers their fullest and most readable account of America's battle against slavery. --Steve Donoghue, Christian Science Monitor [This] book, which traces the history of abolition from the 1600s to the 1860s, documents its international character and demonstrates the central role played by free and enslaved Blacks, is a valuable addition to our understanding of the role of race and racism in America. --Glenn Altschuler, Florida Courier [A] comprehensive survey of the abolitionist movement in Colonial and independent America. . . . Covers a great deal of ground well. . . . Wide-ranging and admirably ambitious. --Kirkus Reviews At once encyclopedic in narrative detail and broadly interpretive, squeezing new meaning from known figures and texts, and introducing readers to other, more obscure actors, many of them African Americans. . . . In her masterwork, The Slave's Cause, Manisha Sinha heroically rescues abolitionism from the condescension of historians. --Bruce Laurie, Massachusetts Review A stunning new history of abolitionism. . . . Placing abolitionism in its international context is just one of the great strengths of The Slave's Cause. . . . [Sinha] plugs abolitionism back into the history of anticapitalist protest. --Adam Rothman, The Atlantic [Sinha's] research is deep and wide-ranging, and she both reacquaints us with familiar historical figures and introduces us to those who may not be familiar. . . . In recent years the crucial roles of African-Americans in directing and sustaining the movement have been compellingly demonstrated. But no one has made the case as fully as has Sinha. --Steven Hahn, Chronicle of Higher Education [The] long history of the fight to end slavery is brilliantly told in historian Manisha Sinha's magisterial, The Slave's Cause. --Erik J. Chaput, Providence Journal This book will long be a must read for expert and lay readers alike who want to truly understand the history of the nation's most important and revolutionary movement for radical social change. --Corey M. Brooks, Civil War Book Review Rich and comprehensive. --Stephanie McCurry, Nation [A] prodigious work of scholarship. . . . Manisha Sinha has cemented in place the last stone in the scholarly edifice of the past half century that has rehabilitated the abolitionists' reputation. --James M. McPherson, New York Review of Books This comprehensive history of abolition in the US provides long overdue coverage of one of the country's foundational radical reform movements, initiating the US commitment to the principle of human rights. Original in conceptualization and primary research, the book covers the breadth of abolition from the 17th century to the aftermath of slavery's eradication by the Thirteenth Amendment, and touches briefly on the movement's legacies today. . . . Highly recommended. --Choice In emphasizing abolitionism's long historical trajectory, its international perspective, and its interracial character, Sinha situates her story firmly within the most up-to-date trends in historical writing; and with her extensive research and broad command of the era, she has produced a work of high originality and broad popular appeal. --Eric Foner, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery A groundbreaking, brilliant book. The Slave's Cause should be required reading for every scholar in the humanities and social sciences who is concerned with the American condition. It's that important. No one does a better job describing how and why male and female, black and white abolitionists created the first civil rights movement. --John Stauffer, Harvard University A marvelous book long needed! Manisha Sinha's The Slave's Cause: A History of Abolition presents a revolutionary narrative that gives black activism long overdue acknowledgment. At the same time, Sinha erases needless color lines, revealing the comprehensive nature of abolitionism. --Nell Irvin Painter, author of The History of White People Beginning with the actions and arguments of enslaved people, Manisha Sinha masterfully reconstructs the evolution of this international, interracial movement to rescue humanity from a predatory and expansionist unfree empire. --Craig Steven Wilder, author of Ebony & Ivy: Race, Slavery, and the Troubled History of America's Universities