This book is so concise, it only spans fifty-seven pages (not including sources and index). Kerri Greenidge wrote an excellent book highlighting the most prominent black and white abolitionists in Boston, MA from prior to the American Revolution to the height of the Civil War. She stays on point, maintaining historical knowledge local to Boston with just enough background on certain individuals or events as they involved Bostonians. ( )

As part of Commonwealth Editions' "New England Remembers" series, Kerri Greenidge, a former park ranger/historian at the Boston African-American National Historic Site on Beacon Hill, has written Boston's Abolitionists, a short overview of the anti-slavery movement in Boston during the first half of the nineteenth century. It is difficult to provide anything nearing a full treatment of such an important topic, let alone in fifty-seven pages of text, but Greenidge's effort is a decent introduction to the subject.

The role of Boston and its citizens - black and white - in the American abolition movement cannot be understated; without the efforts of David Walker, William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips, Charles Sumner and others history would have undoubtedly taken a much different course. While Greenidge's work makes this point, I can't help but wish that she had been able to go into more detail: deeper discussion of Garrison's journalism, the Anthony Burns episode, and perhaps most importantly the pre-Revolutionary abolition efforts would have been most welcome. The omission of footnotes is also a perpetual bugaboo of mine - even in a basic work like this, citations are important.

Greenidge writes well, and her knowledge of the subject is clear. I hope that she'll have the opportunity to expand on this work in future. But if you're looking for a good overall rundown of abolitionism in Boston, this will be an excellent starting point.

http://philobiblos.blogspot.com/2006/08/book-review-bostons-abolitionists.html ( )