{"id":2119,"date":"2011-06-24T08:30:39","date_gmt":"2011-06-24T13:30:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kirstenmortensen.com\/index.php\/?p=2119"},"modified":"2020-01-03T20:02:44","modified_gmt":"2020-01-04T01:02:44","slug":"writers-like-to-believe-they-can-change-the-world-this-one-actually-did","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kirstenmortensen.com\/index.php\/writers-like-to-believe-they-can-change-the-world-this-one-actually-did\/","title":{"rendered":"Writers like to believe they can change the world. This one actually did."},"content":{"rendered":"

In today’s Wall Street Journal, Fergus Bordewich reviews<\/a> Mightier Than the Sword <\/em>by David S. Reynolds<\/a>: a book about Harriet Beecher Stowe’s 1852 novel, <\/a>Uncle Tom’s Cabin. <\/em><\/p>\n

Bordewich quotes from the book that in the first year after its release, Uncle Tom’s Cabin <\/em><\/p>\n

sold 310,000 copies in the United States, triple the number of its nearest rivals.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It would eventually sell a million copies in Great Britain alone.<\/p>\n

The book “opened the way for a widespread acceptance in the North of antislavery arguments that had long been ignored or dismissed.”<\/p>\n

It helped pave the way for Lincoln’s efforts to “convert countless apathetic Yankees into men willing to fight for the emancipation of slaves.”<\/p>\n

I read the book many many years ago, as a pre-teen — it was one of the novels I found as I worked my way through my hometown’s little library. Even then I recognized it was not only dated but propaganda; I recognized that the writing was in service of a Cause rather than an esthetic.<\/p>\n

But what a cause, and what an accomplishment for a writer to almost single-handedly turn an entire country away from its acceptance of slavery . . .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In today’s Wall Street Journal, Fergus Bordewich reviews Mightier Than the Sword by David S. Reynolds: a book about Harriet Beecher Stowe’s 1852 novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Bordewich quotes from the book that in the first year after its release, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,9],"tags":[384,288,285,287,286],"class_list":["post-2119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-reviews","category-books","tag-books","tag-david-s-reynolds","tag-harriet-beecher-stowe","tag-mightier-than-the-sword","tag-uncle-toms-cabin"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kirstenmortensen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kirstenmortensen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kirstenmortensen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kirstenmortensen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kirstenmortensen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2119"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/kirstenmortensen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2119\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6421,"href":"https:\/\/kirstenmortensen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2119\/revisions\/6421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kirstenmortensen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kirstenmortensen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kirstenmortensen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}