TY - JOUR
AU - Ostrander, Gilman M.
AB - 26 Reviews of Books American culture during the 1830'S, employing the previously developed con­ cept of a distinctly Jacksonian "combination of confidence and anxiety." Powder Keg is an often repetitive sourcebook of antiabolitionist tirades. Ratner uses many of the same individuals-for example, James Fenimore Cooper, Lyman Beecher, Calvin Colton, and the ubiquitous James Kirk Paulding -to illustrate each of his themes, while neglecting to explain what made their views particularly "representative." Similarly, the author pays almost no attention to chronology. Although he mentions in passing events such as the nullification crisis, the Nat Turner Insurrection, and the gag rule controversy, Ratner avoids asking whether these episodes helped to mold northern attitudes toward the abolitionists. Was the antiabolitionist critique fully developed by 1831, or did it undergo significant change during the 1830'S with each succeeding crisis? The reader will also find it difficult to determine whether the arguments against abolitionism employed by northerners differed from southern attacks. Again, the author does not raise the question. Nor does he mention William W. Freehling's findings on southern attitudes toward the new antislavery militants during the 1830's. Ratner correctly suggests certain "methodological difficulties" with his book. The basic ones concern his overstatements regarding 
TI - Elihu Burritt: Crusader for Brotherhood. By Peter Tolis. (Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books. 1968. Pp. ix, 309. $10.00.)
JF - The American Historical Review
DO - 10.1086/ahr/74.5.1726
DA - 1969-06-01
UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/oxford-university-press/elihu-burritt-crusader-for-brotherhood-by-peter-tolis-hamden-conn-DLOaI08e0q
SP - 1726
EP - 1727
VL - 74
IS - 5
DP - DeepDyve
ER -