A history of abolition that recovers the largely forgotten role of African Americans in the long march toward emancipation from the American Revolution through the Civil War.
[a] comprehensive and often revelatory history of American abolitionism from its origins in early colonial New England to its triumphant advance into the mainstream of the Republican Party before the Civil War.
...the seemingly endless detail presented over the course of nearly 600 pages of text and another 100-plus pages of notes frustrates her effort to present a clear alternative narrative to the familiar one ... Nonetheless, she has given us a full history of the men and women who truly made us free. And that is more than enough.
While the sheer amount of material seems to often overwhelm Sinha’s ability to elegantly present it as a narrative, she does offer fresh insights ... The Slave's Cause is as multifaceted as the movement it chronicles. Sinha includes lengthy thematic chapters on women in the fight and how abolition linked up — and clashed with — other reform movements. Sinha examines the heated debates over colonization efforts ... She also details how the movement responded to the Fugitive Slave Act
