In the Matter of Nat Turner, Christopher Tomlins
In the Matter of Nat Turner, Christopher Tomlins
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In the Matter of Nat Turner
A Speculative History

Author: Christopher Tomlins

Narrator: Paul Boehmer

Unabridged: 11 hr 47 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 03/31/2020


Synopsis

In 1831 Virginia, Nat Turner led a band of Southampton County slaves in a rebellion that killed fifty-five whites, mostly women and children. After more than two months in hiding, Turner was captured, and quickly convicted and executed. In the Matter of Nat Turner penetrates the historical caricature of Turner as befuddled mystic and self-styled Baptist preacher to recover the haunting persona of this legendary American slave rebel.

Much about Turner remains unknown. His extraordinary account of his life and rebellion, given in chains as he awaited trial in jail, was written down by an opportunistic white attorney and sold as a pamphlet to cash in on Turner's notoriety. But the enigmatic rebel leader had an immediate and broad impact on the American South, and his rebellion remains one of the most momentous episodes in American history. Christopher Tomlins provides a luminous account of Turner's intellectual development, religious cosmology, and motivations, and offers an original and incisive analysis of the Turner Rebellion itself and its impact on Virginia politics. Tomlins also undertakes a deeply critical examination of William Styron's 1967 novel, The Confessions of Nat Turner, which restored Turner to the American consciousness in the era of civil rights, black power, and urban riots.

About Christopher Tomlins

Christopher Tomlins is the Elizabeth Josselyn Boalt Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley, and an affiliated research professor at the American Bar Foundation, Chicago. His many books include Freedom Bound: Law, Labor, and Civic Identity in Colonizing English America, 1580-1865 and Law, Labor, and Ideology in the Early American Republic. He lives in Berkeley.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Arelya

By Arelya J. Mitchell I received an advance copy of “In the Matter of Nat Turner, A Speculative History” by Christopher Tomlins (from Princeton University Press), but it has taken me more than a while to review it—not because I didn’t want to. On the contrary, because I wanted to reread “The Confessi......more

Goodreads review by Matt

“We who are readers of texts, who are historians, if we are to read as true historians, we must always be ready to read what was never written. Always.” This was a fascinating treatment of Nat Turner that took his faith and action seriously throughout. It challenges the assumption of how and where h......more