Newman's book offers a rigorous and engaging account of the movement that is digestible in a single sitting. As valuable as it is as an introductory text for readers new to the topic, its varied insights and anecdotes will also enlighten scholars more deeply invested in this history. Margot Minardi, The American Historical Review
Richard S. Newman is Professor of History at the Rochester Institute of Technology. He is the author of The Transformation of American Abolitionism, Freedom's Prophet: Bishop Richard Allen, the AME Church, and the Black Founding Fathers, and Love Canal: A Toxic History from Colonial Times to the Present. He is the former Edwin Wolf 2nd Director at The Library Company of Philadelphia.