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Start giftingTo Purge This Land with Blood
A Biography of John Brown
Narrator
Stephen R. Thorne
This audiobook uses AI narration.
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Length
17 hours
Language
English
In October 1859, abolitionist John Brown led a raid on the federal armory at Harpers Ferry. His goal was to secure weapons and start a slave rebellion. The raid was a failure, but it galvanized the nation and sparked the Civil War.
Still one of the most controversial figures in American history, John Brown's actions raise interesting questions about unsanctioned violence that can be justified for a greater good.
For more than a hundred years after Brown's hanging, biographies of him tended to be highly politicized—then came historian Stephen B. Oates's biography of Brown. Since its publication, Professor Oates's work has come to be recognized as the definitive biography of Brown, a balanced assessment that captures the man in all his complexity.
Stephen B. Oates is the author of many books, including The Approaching Fury, With Malice Toward None: A Life of Abraham Lincoln, and Let the Trumpet Sound: A Life of Martin Luther King, Jr., the latter two books winning, respectively, the Christopher Award and the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Book Award. Oates was a consultant and "talking head" in Ken Burns's Civil War series on PBS, and is a recipient of the Nevins-Freeman Award of the Chicago Civil War Round Table for lifetime achievement in the field of Civil War studies.
Stephen R. Thorne is a professional actor and a member of the Trinity Repertory Company in Providence, Rhode Island. He has played Hamlet, Henry V, and Tom Joad, among many other roles. Stephen has narrated over fifty audiobooks.