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Product Identifiers

PublisherBeacon Press

ISBN-100807060984

ISBN-139780807060988

eBay Product ID (ePID)243196104

Product Key Features

Book TitleFearless Benjamin Lay : The Quaker Dwarf Who Became the First Revolutionary Abolitionist, with a New Preface and Afterword

Number of Pages232 Pages

LanguageEnglish

Publication Year2018

TopicSlavery, United States / Revolutionary Period (1775-1800), People with Disabilities, History & Theory, Religious, Christianity / Quaker, United States / Civil War Period (1850-1877), General

IllustratorYes

GenreReligion, Political Science, Social Science, Biography & Autobiography, History

AuthorMarcus Rediker

FormatTrade Paperback

Dimensions

Item Height0.7 in

Item Weight12 Oz

Item Length9 in

Item Width6 in

Additional Product Features

Intended AudienceTrade

LCCN2016-050051

Dewey Edition23

TitleLeadingThe

Reviews"Rediker provides a valuable addition to abolitionist historiography. . . . A concise, solid biography of 'the first revolutionary abolitionist,' a diminutive man who was decades ahead of his time." -- Kirkus Reviews "Rediker adroitly describes nuances of the Quaker faith's evolution. . . . Lay's farsightedness and extensive advocacy deserves to be remembered." -- Publishers Weekly "Highly recommended, especially for public and college library biography collections." -- Midwest Book Review "Lay, a lover of books, would have appreciated this one, less for the praise lavished on him than the attention given his message. As Mr. Rediker says, 'Benjamin's prophecy speaks to our time.'" -- The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette "Admirers of Marcus Rediker's splendid The Slave Ship will be delighted by this historian's new book. Sailor, pioneer of guerilla theater, and a man who would stop at nothing to make his fellow human beings share his passionate outrage against slavery, Benjamin Lay has long needed a modern biographer worthy of him, and now he has one." --Adam Hochschild "A modern biography of the radical abolitionist Benjamin Lay has long been overdue. With the sure hand of an eminent historian of the disfranchised, Marcus Rediker has brought to life the wide-ranging activism of this extraordinary Quaker, vegetarian dwarf in a richly crafted book. In fully recovering Lay's revolutionary abolitionist vision, Rediker reveals its ongoing significance for our world." --Manisha Sinha, author of The Slave's Cause: A History of Abolition "The unswerving eighteenth-century abolitionist Benjamin Lay, maligned when not ignored for many generations, has at last found his sympathetic biographer. In this captivating, must-read book, Marcus Rediker shows that Lay's disfigured body contained a mind of steel and a heart overflowing with compassion for victims of the Atlantic slave trade. Lay's place in the annals of American reform is now secure. If you're ready to have your mind changed about received wisdom on the eccentric, lonely early abolitionist who blazed the way for later antislavery stalwarts, read this brilliantly researched and passionately written book." --Gary Nash, author of Warner Mifflin, Unflinching Quaker Abolitionist

Dewey Decimal326.8092

SynopsisRenowned historian Marcus Rediker chronicles the transatlantic life and times of a singular man-Benjamin Lay (1682-1759)-a Quaker dwarf who demanded the total, unconditional emancipation of all enslaved Africans around the world. Mocked by his contemporaries, Lay was a visionary who practiced the ideals of democracy and equality an astonishing three hundred years ago. Insisting that human bondage violated the principles of Christianity, Lay often performed colorful guerrilla theater to shame slave masters. His revolutionary life embodied the proclamation "no justice, no peace." Rediker not only captures Lay's legacy with passion and historical rigor; he has already helped to change his historical standing with this biography. Since the publication of The Fearless Benjamin Lay, the Abington Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends and the North London Quaker Meeting, two of the communities that disowned Lay in the eighteenth century, have now publicly embraced his spirit, ideals, and memory. Book jacket., The little-known story of an eighteenth-century Quaker dwarf who fiercely attacked slavery and imagined a new, more humane way of life In The Fearless Benjamin Lay , renowned historian Marcus Rediker chronicles the transatlantic life and times of a singular man--a Quaker dwarf who demanded the total, unconditional emancipation of all enslaved Africans around the world. Mocked and scorned by his contemporaries, Lay was unflinching in his opposition to slavery, often performing colorful guerrilla theater to shame slave masters, insisting that human bondage violated the fundamental principles of Christianity. He drew on his ideals to create a revolutionary way of life, one that embodied the proclamation "no justice, no peace." Lay was born in 1682 in Essex, England. His philosophies, employments, and places of residence--spanning England, Barbados, Philadelphia, and the open seas--were markedly diverse over the course of his life. He worked as a shepherd, glove maker, sailor, and bookseller. His worldview was an astonishing combination of Quakerism, vegetarianism, animal rights, opposition to the death penalty, and abolitionism. While in Abington, Philadelphia, Lay lived in a cave-like dwelling surrounded by a library of two hundred books, and it was in this unconventional abode where he penned a fiery and controversial book against bondage, which Benjamin Franklin published in 1738. Always in motion and ever confrontational, Lay maintained throughout his life a steadfast opposition to slavery and a fierce determination to make his fellow Quakers denounce it, which they finally began to do toward the end of his life. With passion and historical rigor, Rediker situates Lay as a man who fervently embodied the ideals of democracy and equality as he practiced a unique concoction of radicalism nearly three hundred years ago. Rediker resurrects this forceful and prescient visionary, who speaks to us across the ages and whose innovative approach to activism is a gift, transforming how we consider the past and how we might imagine the future.

LC Classification NumberE446.R43 2017