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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 91.1 | The History Cooperative
91.1  
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June, 2004
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Book Review



"Fire from the Midst of You": A Religious Life of John Brown. By Louis A. DeCaro Jr. (New York: New York University Press, 2002. xvi, 349 pp. $32.95, ISBN 0-8147-1921-X.)

The abolitionist John Brown, whose raid on Harpers Ferry, Virginia, in 1859 helped precipitate the Civil War, continues to fascinate Americans. Since 1995 there have been more than a half dozen scholarly studies dealing with aspects of his career. There have also been several novels. Among the scholarly studies, Louis A. DeCaro Jr.'s "Fire from the Midst of You" is notable in that it is a brief biography, rather than a study of a group to which Brown belonged or of only a single facet of his life. DeCaro certainly emphasizes the centrality of religion in Brown's life—particularly as a means of explaining his use of force against slavery's defenders—but by no means concentrates on Brown's religious thought and practice. . . .

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