{"id":42636,"date":"2015-09-10T01:14:36","date_gmt":"2015-09-10T01:14:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=42636"},"modified":"2017-02-06T22:56:28","modified_gmt":"2017-02-06T22:56:28","slug":"the-lives-of-frederick-douglass","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=42636","title":{"rendered":"The Lives of Frederick Douglass"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Lives of Frederick Douglass<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Harvard University Press<\/a>
\nFebruary 2016
\n350 pages
\n5-1\/2 x 8-1\/4 inches
\n9 halftones
\nHardcover ISBN: 9780674055810<\/p>\n

Robert S. Levine<\/a><\/strong>, Professor of English and a Distinguished University Professor
\nUniversity of Maryland<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Frederick Douglass\u2019s<\/a> fluid, changeable sense of his own life story is reflected in the many conflicting accounts he gave of key events and relationships during his journey from slavery to freedom. Nevertheless, when these differing self-presentations are put side by side and consideration is given individually to their rhetorical strategies and historical moment, what emerges is a fascinating collage of Robert S. Levine\u2019s elusive subject. The Lives of Frederick Douglass<\/em> is revisionist biography at its best, offering new perspectives on Douglass the social reformer, orator, and writer.<\/p>\n

Out of print for a hundred years when it was reissued in 1960, The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass<\/em> (1845) has since become part of the canon of American literature and the primary lens through which scholars see Douglass\u2019s life and work. Levine argues that the disproportionate attention paid to the Narrative<\/em> has distorted Douglass\u2019s larger autobiographical project. The Lives of Frederick Douglass<\/em> focuses on a wide range of writings from the 1840s to the 1890s, particularly the neglected Life and Times of Frederick Douglass<\/em> (1881, 1892), revised and expanded only three years before Douglass\u2019s death. Levine provides fresh insights into Douglass\u2019s relationships with John Brown<\/a>, Abraham Lincoln<\/a>, William Lloyd Garrison<\/a>, and his former slave master Thomas Auld, and highlights Douglass\u2019s evolving positions on race, violence, and nation. Levine\u2019s portrait reveals that Douglass could be every bit as pragmatic as Lincoln\u2014of whom he was sometimes fiercely critical\u2014when it came to promoting his own work and goals.<\/p>\n

Table of Contents<\/strong><\/p>\n