Generally critics and interpreters of Uncle Tom have constructed a
one-way view of Uncle Tom, albeit offering a few kind words for
Uncle Tom along the way. Recovering Uncle Tom requires re-telling
his story. This book delivers on that mission, while accomplishing
something no other work on Harriet Beecher Stowe has fully
attempted: an in-depth statement of her political thought.
Heroeuvre, in partnership with that of her husband Calvin,
constitutes a demonstration of the permanent necessity of moral and
prudential judgment in human affairs. Moreover, it identifies the
political conditions that can best guarantee conditions of decency.
Her two disciplinesDphilosophy and poetryDilluminate the founding
principles of the American republic and remedy defects in their
realization that were evident in mid-nineteenth century. While
slavery is not the only defect, its persistence and expansion
indicate the overall shortcomings. In four of her chief works
(Uncle Tom's Cabin, Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands, Dred,
andOldtown Folks), Stowe teaches not only how to eliminate the
defect of slavery, but also how to realize and maintain a regime
founded on the basis of natural rights and Christianity. Further,
she identifies the proper vehicle for educating citizens so they
might reliably be ruled by decent public opinion. Book one, part
one of Rethinking Uncle Tom explains Uncle Tom's Cabin within the
context of the Stowes' joint project, an articulation of the
conditions of democratic life and the appropriate nature of modern
humanism. Book two, parts one and two, analyses how key elements of
Calvin's thinking were conveyed by Stowe's works, while
distinguishing her thought from his, and examines the importance of
her 'political geography' and the breadth of her thinking on
cultural, moral, and political matters. Parts three and four
investigate the most mature elements of Stowe's political thought,
providing a close reading of Sunny MemoriesDrevealing the full
political purpose of that work, discerned through mastery of its
complex symbolismDand of Oldtown Folks, which completes the
development of Stowe's political thought by assessing three
alternative regimes and by presenting a vision of anutopia: the
ultimate life of decency and order which is proof against false
dreams of rationalized life. Rethinking Uncle Tom provides readers
both better familiarity with the moral discourse of abolition and
nineteenth-century reformism, and, more importantly, a glimpse of
an America envisioned as producing that nobility of soul that Uncle
Tom represented, the human model of surpassing excellence.
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