Mightier than the Sword
Uncle Tom's Cabin and the Battle for America
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4.3 • 3 Ratings
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
“Fascinating . . . a lively and perceptive cultural history.” —Annette Gordon-Reed, The New Yorker
In this wide-ranging, brilliantly researched work, David S. Reynolds traces the factors that made Uncle Tom’s Cabin the most influential novel ever written by an American. Upon its 1852 publication, the novel’s vivid depiction of slavery polarized its American readership, ultimately widening the rift that led to the Civil War. Reynolds also charts the novel’s afterlife—including its adaptation into plays, films, and consumer goods—revealing its lasting impact on American entertainment, advertising, and race relations.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In 1868, a writer in the Nation coined the phrase "the great American novel" to describe Harriet Beecher Stowe's 1851 Uncle Tom's Cabin. Distinguished historian Reynolds (Waking Giant: America in the Age of Jackson) does his best to support this debatable epithet, quoting endless contemporaries who asserted that Stowe's novel ignited the Civil War and emancipated the slaves, its impact extending well into the 20th century. Reynolds's most fascinating research illuminates Stowe's skillful use of popular culture from Stephen Foster's songs to the cult of domesticity and her Christian faith (exemplified by Tom and little Eva St. Clare) to make her radical antislavery stance palatable to Northerners indifferent to the brutality of slavery and the humanity of the black slaves. As Reynolds shows, Uncle Tom's Cabin itself became a cultural phenomenon, with commercial tie-ins (called Tomitudes), Southern ripostes, and myriad Uncle Tom plays and movies. He discusses these in more detail than any but cultural historians will need, digressing into Gone with the Wind and the depiction of blacks in early movies. Reynolds's narrow focus on Stowe and her novel also leads him to skim important events leading to the war, and relegate giants like Frederick Douglass to supporting roles. But Reynolds's discussion of the novel's mid-20th-century ill repute and the "Uncle Tom" slur comes full circle with the novel's recent literary resurrection, to which he contributes with his exacting research. By highlighting the book's immense impact and literary value, and by showing Tom as not subservient but a strong, dignified man who sacrificed his life in defying his cruel master, Simon Legree, Reynolds shows Stowe's novel to be a passionate, powerful, acid-etched critique of slavery that remains an American classic. 15 illus.
Customer Reviews
Persuasive Evidence of the Positive Impact of UTC
In this well-written and thoroughly researched book, David Reynolds fully build the evidence of the positive and massive impact of Uncle Tom's Cabin. I strongly encourage you to read UTC first (many free editions available in IBooks) before reading this analysis. Reynolds shows how the explosive success of the novel and especially the plays it spawned deeply impacted American and European thinkers for decades. Almost every American from 1860-1920 saw a "Tom" play performed live, many very closely tied to the exciting narrative in Stowe's story. Before reading UTC, I had assumed that it was a political, pedantic, and melodramatic novel based on the extreme abuses of a slave society. UTC is much more nuanced than that with evil and good spread throughout the country and the races; however, its condemnation was clear then, and as Reynolds points out so deftly, it was highly effective at tolling the death knell for slavery.