ABOUT THIS BOOK

More than two centuries after his birth and almost a century and a half after his death, the legendary life and legacy of John Brown go marching on. Variously deemed martyr, madman, monster, terrorist, and saint, he remains one of the most controversial figures in America’s history. Brown’s actions in Kansas and in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, were major catalysts for the American Civil War, and continue today to evoke praise or condemnation.

Through the prisms of history, literature, psychology, criminal justice, oral history, African American studies, political science, film studies, and anthropology, Terrible Swift Sword offers insights not only into John Brown’s controversial character and motives but also into the nature of a troubled society before, during, and after the Civil War. The contributors discuss reasons why Brown’s contemporaries supported him, analyze Brown’s behavior and his depiction in literature, and examine the iconography and mythology surrounding him.

The interdisciplinary focus brought by editors Peggy A. Russo and Paul Finkelman makes this collection unique. Terrible Swift Sword: The Legacy of John Brown will appeal to a broad audience of readers interested in this turbulent moment in American history.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Peggy A. Russo is an assistant professor of English at the Mont Alto campus of Pennsylvania State University. She has published in Shakespeare Bulletin, Southern Literary Journal, Journal of American Culture, Shakespeare and the Classroom, and Civil War Book Review.

Paul Finkelman is an expert on constitutional history, the law of slavery, and the American Civil War. He coedits the Ohio University Press series New Approaches to Midwestern Studies and is the president of Gratz College.

REVIEWS

“There’s fresh material, fresh perspective, and more.”—Peter Wallenstein, author of Blue Laws and Black Codes: Conflict, Courts, and Change in Twentieth-Century Virginia

“[I]n the spirit of revisiting Brown, Paul Finkelman and Peggy Russo have edited a diverse and intriguing new volume that takes its place at the top of a significant pile of writing on the Old Man from Osawatomie.... This is one volume that makes an important contribution to that ongoing conversation.”—The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents
List of Illustrations	000
Preface by Peggy A. Russo	000
Acknowledgments	000
Introduction by Paul Finkelman	000
Chronology	000
Part 1: Contemporaries and Supporters of John Brown
1. Why Theodore Parker Backed John Brown: The Political and Social Roots of Support for 
Abolitionist Violence, Dean Grodzins	000
2. They Heard His Call: The Local Black Community's Involvement in the Raid on Harpers Ferry, 
Hannah Geffert	000
3. How Rev. Thomas W. Henry of the AME Church Met John Brown, Jean Libby	000
Part 2: John Brown Defined
4. John Brown as Founder: America's Violent Confrontation with Its First Principles, Scott John 
Hammond	000
5. John Brown and the Legacy of Martyrdom, Eyal Naveh	000
6. John Brown as "Lawless Fanatic": A Usable Past for the Postwar South, Charles J. Holden	000
Part 3: Behavioral Analyses of John Brown
7. A Behavioral Analysis of John Brown: Martyr or Terrorist? James N. Gilbert	000
8. A Psychological Examination of John Brown, Kenneth R. Carroll	000
Part 4: Literary Representations of John Brown
9. Hero, Martyr, Madman: Representations of John Brown in the Poetry of the John Brown Year, 
1859/60, William Keeney	000
10. Beyond History: John Brown, Raising Holy Hell, and Posthistorical Fiction, Bruce Olds	000
Part 5: John Brown and Cultural Iconography
11. John Brown's Fort: A Contested National Symbol, Paul A. Shackel	000
12. John Brown Goes to Hollywood: Santa Fe Trail and Seven Angry Men, Peggy A. Russo	000
Contributors	000
Index	000