To Purge This Land with Blood: A Biography of John Brown

Written by Stephen B. Oates

Narrated by Stephen R. Thorne

In October 1859, abolitionist John Brown led a raid on the federal armory at Harpers Ferry. His goal was to secure weapons and start a slave rebellion. The raid was a failure, but it galvanized the nation and sparked the Civil War.

Still one of the most controversial figures in American history, John Brown's actions raise interesting questions about unsanctioned violence that can be justified for a greater good.

For more than a hundred years after Brown's hanging, biographies of him tended to be highly politicized-then came historian Stephen B. Oates's biography of Brown. Since its publication, Professor Oates's work has come to be recognized as the definitive biography of Brown, a balanced assessment that captures the man in all his complexity.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc
• Release date: Oct 18, 2022
• ISBN: 9798765025642

Stephen B. Oates

Stephen B. Oates (1936-2021) was a professor emeritus of history at the University of Massachusetts–Amherst. His books include Let the Trumpet Sound: A Life of Martin Luther King, Jr. and With Malice Toward None: A Life of Abraham Lincoln. Oates has been awarded numerous honors, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, Robert F. Kennedy Book Award, and Nevins-Freeman Award of the Civil War Round Table of Chicago for lifetime achievement in the field of Civil War studies.