My local librarian told me about this book. Actually, he thought I looked a lot like John Brown. He joked that I should consider dressing up like Brown around the Fourth of July. But I decided against it because John Brown gives a vibe I’m not really going for. It’s the violent anti-slavery extremist vibe. I am certainly anti-slavery, but I do not like violent extremism.
I felt intrigued by John Brown’s calvinistic theology, and his decision-making process when opposing slavery in the mid-1800s. Tony Horwitz writes Midnight Rising in a wonderful, journalistic style, and he gives us a nice-paced history of the Harper’s Ferry Raid, which provoked the Civil War. It was a great read.