Mightier Than the Sword: Uncle Tom’s Cabin and the Battle for America
by David S. Reynolds
New York: W. W. Norton, 2011. Norton paperback edition 2012.
“Fascinating…a lively and perceptive cultural history.”
— Annette Gordon-Reed, The New Yorker
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About the Book
Uncle Tom’s Cabin is perhaps the most influential and iconic novel ever written by an American. In this captivating cultural history, David S. Reynolds not only charts the factors that conspired to make Harriet Beecher Stowe’s 1852 an instant bestseller but also traces the novel’s political, cultural, and social legacy up to the present day.
As Reynolds reveals, the American imagination was primed for Stowe’s novel. A member of a prominent, reform-minded New England family, Stowe drew from all realms of culture, high and low—religion, thrillers, slave narratives—to create a uniquely American text, one that would advocate on behalf of the oppressed and pave the way for a more egalitarian democracy.
By illustrating the evils of slavery with a moving, character-driven story—which Stowe claimed was inspired by her own divine visions—Uncle Tom’s Cabin accelerated the rise of abolitionism in the north. In the South, it met with contrasting reactions: it appealed to some with its portrayal of kind southerners and an evil northerner, Simon Legree, while others could not condemn it enough. Could a single book have fueled the Civil War? Reynolds investigates this often-mentioned assumption to gauge how this one woman contributed to the fracturing of the nation.
In the war’s wake, Uncle Tom’s Cabin influenced emancipation causes worldwide, during that century and the next. And, despite the legalized segregation of the Jim Crow era, it remained popular, being spun off into traveling shows, silent films, advertising campaigns, cartoons, and merchandise ranging from figurines to card games. The Southern backlash to its pawned such works as The Clansman; its film version, The Birth of a Nation; and even Gone with the Wind.
Fascinating and far-reaching, Mightier than the Sword is a testament to one novel’s unique power to shape the course of American history and identity.
Critical Praise for Mightier Than the Sword
“Fascinating…a lively and perceptive cultural history.”
— Annette Gordon-Reed, The New Yorker
Praise [link to the following blurbs]:
“Insightful,….informative,….rewarding.”
— Andrew Delbanco, New York Times Book Review
“A stunning look at the importance of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”
–Stanley Crouch, New York Daily News
“A subtle and splendid history of the novel’s effect on American culture.”
–Fergus Bordewich, Wall Street Journal
“Bravura work….Reynolds has given us another cultural history of assured mastery, a history that combines deep erudition, lightly worn, with a lively and readable style.”
—Dallas Morning News
“Consistently enlightening…Mightier Than the Sword deftly explores the social-intellectual context and personal experience out of which Stowe’s novel evolved into a grand entertainment and a titanic engine of change.”
—The Boston Globe
“Expansive and illuminating….One of the pleasures of “Mightier Than the Sword” is discovering that “Uncle Tom’s fingerprints on history are almost everywhere.”
– Adam Goodheart, Slate
“Uncle Tom’s Cabin invigorated the aboltion movement in a way that mere data had not, as David S. Reynolds dcocuments in his excellent study.”
–Martha Nussbaum, Times Literary Suplement
“A richly informative and entertaining work of scholarship, a generation-spanning account of American race relations, and a testament to the power of a book to change history….A sparkling and sprawling narrative.”
—Common-place
“The crowning achievement of a lifetime of outstanding scholarship….Well written and accessible while still being useful for researchers. It tells a great story and provides much interesting detail, and I would highly recommend it for history buffs as well as literature students of all ages.”
–Harold K. Bush, Books and Culture
Starred Review: “A provocative overview of the life and afterlife of one of American literature’s most important texts….A sharp work of cross-disciplinary criticism that gives new power to a diminished novel. Reynolds successfully repositions the novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe as a major political work, crucial not just to the abolitionist movement, but as kindling for the Civil War and an important inspiration to the cultural discussions of race relations through most of the 20th century”
— Kirkus Reviews
“Reynolds is a virtuoso writer…A fitting tribute to the 200th anniversary of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s birth.”
–Mike Harvkey, Publishers Weekly
“Beautifully written, convincing, and fascinating…. Reynolds’s illustration of the centrality of Stowe’s work in the reformulation of American culture before, during, and after the Civil War is most impressive.”
—Indiana Magazine of History
“A wonderful history of what may justly be considered America’s national epic.”
–Joan Hedrick, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Harriet Beecher Stowe: A Life
“Deeply researched and compulsively readable…Both the definitive account of the strange but true career of Uncle Tom’s Cabin and a sweeping two-hundred year history of race in America.”
–Debby Applegate, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Most Famous Man in America: The Biography of Henry Ward Beecher
“You can always count on David Reynolds to surprise and delight, and in his latest work, he does not disappoint. This time, he sets his sights on the far-ranging and fascinating impact of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s mammoth bestseller, Uncle Tom’s Cabin. In Reynolds’s gifted hands, Mightier Than The Sword is nothing less than an intellectual feast. Bravo for yet another superb book.”
–Jay Winik, author of April 1865 and The Great Upheaval
Readers’ Comments:
5.0 out of 5 stars A Mighty Pen Writing about Stowe’s Mightier “Sword”
This is a terrific effort by Professor Reynolds. It is a masterful study of an important writer and her most important work. Highly recommended. It enhances one’s understanding of our most important civil conflict.
Reynolds goes into great detail about the philosophical, religious and literary underpinnings of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s most influential novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and shows us what influenced HBS in the writing of it. There is also sensitive analysis of HBS’s family, her personal life and her own psyche. All of this is handled in a sensitive and quietly insightful way. His measured analysis of the work’s influence on the events leading to the Civil War and the war itself are also handled quite well. Reynolds mixes the anecdotal with the documented historical information very judiciously.
Reynolds treats the work itself with respect, placing it in the literary context of its time, and discusses the strengths and effects of its portraiture and construction. Reynolds is adept at showing us why the work had the great effect that it did.
What emerges is a measured, but clearly reverential portrait of HBS. The latter part of the book traces the ebbs and flows (more flows than ebbs) of the book’s influence over the last 150 years. Uncle Tom is alive today, and quite well, the Professor shows us, very convincingly. This work was meticulously researched and skillfully knitted together. It tells its story in an entertaining and yet educational way.
The word “popularizer” is often viewed as a pejorative. But Professor Reynolds brings HBS and Uncle Tom to a modern audience with skill and grace.
