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The Scorpion's Sting
James Oakes
€ 32.28
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Description for The Scorpion's Sting
Hardcover. An award-winning historian illuminates the strategy for ending slavery that precipitated the crisis of civil war. Num Pages: 208 pages, black & white illustrations, frontispiece. BIC Classification: 1KBB; 3JH; HBJK; HBLL; HBWJ. Category: (P) Professional & Vocational. Dimension: 216 x 150 x 19. Weight in Grams: 370.
Surrounded by a ring of fire, the scorpion stings itself to death. The image, widespread among antislavery leaders before the Civil War, captures their long-standing strategy for peaceful abolition: they would surround the slave states with a cordon of freedom. They planned to use federal power wherever they could to establish freedom: the western territories, the District of Columbia, the high seas. By constricting slavery they would induce a crisis: slaves would escape in ever-greater numbers, the southern economy would falter, and finally the southern states would abolish the institution themselves. For their part the southern states fully understood this antislavery strategy. They cited it repeatedly as they adopted secession ordinances in response to Lincoln's election. The scorpion's sting is the centerpiece of this fresh, incisive exploration of slavery and the Civil War: Was there a peaceful route to abolition? Was Lincoln late to emancipation? What role did race play in the politics of slavery? With stunning insight James Oakes moves us ever closer to a new understanding of the most momentous events in our history.
Product Details
Publisher
WW Norton & Co United States
Number of pages
160
Format
Hardback
Publication date
2014
Condition
New
Number of Pages
208
Place of Publication
New York, United States
ISBN
9780393239935
SKU
V9780393239935
Shipping Time
Usually ships in 7 to 11 working days
Ref
99-23
About James Oakes
James Oakes is the author of several acclaimed books on slavery and the Civil War. His history of emancipation, Freedom National, won the Lincoln Prize and was longlisted for the National Book Award. He is Distinguished Professor of History and Graduate School Humanities Professor at the Graduate Center, CUNY.
Reviews for The Scorpion's Sting
With the direct, forthright style that marks his writings, Oakes makes clear that the secessionists were right when they claimed that the rise of the Republican party foretokened the death of slavery if they remained in the Union...If any reader still questions whether the Civil War was about slavery, this book overcomes all doubts.
James McPherson Incisive, imaginative, surprising, completely original-everything that one would expect from the most eminent historian of emancipation.
Eric J. Sundquist In clear prose and with searing insight, James Oakes recovers the moral urgency and strategic vision behind the Republican drive to undermine the slave system. A work of great depth and empathy.
Alan Taylor A fitting follow-up to Oakes's game-changing study, Freedom National, shedding further light on how the antislavery movement laid the groundwork for emancipation.
Douglas L. Wilson In four swift, clear strokes, James Oakes has rewritten the history of emancipation in the United States.
Allen C. Guelzo James Oakes has brilliantly reframed our understanding of the Civil War. It is no surprise that Oakes is the first scholar to recover the meaning of the scorpion's sting; his close readings of political documents, delivered in his lucid, elegant style, are virtually unrivaled.
John Stauffer An in-depth look at political attitudes toward slavery at the brink of the Civil War.
James McPherson Incisive, imaginative, surprising, completely original-everything that one would expect from the most eminent historian of emancipation.
Eric J. Sundquist In clear prose and with searing insight, James Oakes recovers the moral urgency and strategic vision behind the Republican drive to undermine the slave system. A work of great depth and empathy.
Alan Taylor A fitting follow-up to Oakes's game-changing study, Freedom National, shedding further light on how the antislavery movement laid the groundwork for emancipation.
Douglas L. Wilson In four swift, clear strokes, James Oakes has rewritten the history of emancipation in the United States.
Allen C. Guelzo James Oakes has brilliantly reframed our understanding of the Civil War. It is no surprise that Oakes is the first scholar to recover the meaning of the scorpion's sting; his close readings of political documents, delivered in his lucid, elegant style, are virtually unrivaled.
John Stauffer An in-depth look at political attitudes toward slavery at the brink of the Civil War.