Jon Grinspan

Wide Awake (eBook, ePUB)

The Forgotten Force That Elected Lincoln and Spurred the Civil War

• Format: ePub

Produktbeschreibung

"Excellent."-Wall Street Journal * "A must-read."-The Civil War Monitor

A propulsive account of our history's most surprising, most consequential political club: the Wide Awake anti-slavery youth movement that marched America from the 1860 election to civil war.

At the start of the 1860 presidential campaign, a handful of fired-up young Northerners appeared as bodyguards to defend anti-slavery stump speakers from frequent attacks. The group called themselves the Wide Awakes. Soon, hundreds of thousands of young White and Black men, and a number of women, were organizing boisterous, uniformed, torch-bearing brigades of their own. These Wide Awakes--mostly working-class Americans in their twenties--became one of the largest, most spectacular, and most influential political movements in our history. To some, it demonstrated the power of a rising majority to push back against slavery. To others, it looked like a paramilitary force training to invade the South. Within a year, the nation would be at war with itself, and many on both sides would point to the Wide Awakes as the mechanism that got them there.

In this gripping narrative, Smithsonian historian Jon Grinspan examines how exactly our nation crossed the threshold from a political campaign into a war. Perfect for readers of Lincoln on the Verge and TheField of Blood, Wide Awake bears witness to the power of protest, the fight for majority rule, and the defense of free speech. At its core, Wide Awake illuminates a question American democracy keeps posing, about the precarious relationship between violent speech and violent actions.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Bloomsbury Publishing Inc
• Seitenzahl: 352
• Erscheinungstermin: 14. Mai 2024
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9781639730650
• Artikelnr.: 70299759

Autorenporträt

Jon Grinspan is Curator of Political History at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. He is the author of the award-winning The Virgin Vote: How Young Americans Made Democracy Social, Politics Personal, and Voting Popular in the 19th Century. He frequently contributes to the New York Times, and has been featured in The New Yorker, the Washington Post, and elsewhere. He lives in Washington, D.C.

Rezensionen

Illuminating . . . Torch-bearing marchers with an agenda summon up uncomfortable memories of Berlin in 1933 and Charlottesville in 2017. But Mr. Grinspan's excellent book makes us realize that public zeal in support of a worthy cause can have positive results—in this case, the election of America's greatest president.