Most accounts date the birth of American abolitionism to 1831; when William Lloyd Garrison began publishing his radical antislavery newspaper; The Liberator. In fact; however; the abolition movement had been born with the American Republic. In the decades following the Revolution; abolitionists worked steadily to eliminate slavery and racial injustice; and their tactics and strategies constantly evolved. Tracing the development of the abolitionist movement from the 1770s to the 1830s; Richard Newman focuses particularly on its transformation from a conservative lobbying effort into a fiery grassroots reform cause. What began in late-eighteenth-century Pennsylvania as an elite movement espousing gradual legal reform began to change in the 1820s as black activists; female reformers; and nonelite whites pushed their way into the antislavery movement. Located primarily in Massachusetts; these new reformers demanded immediate emancipation; and they revolutionized abolitionist strategies and tactics--lecturing extensively; publishing gripping accounts of life in bondage; and organizing on a grassroots level. Their attitudes and actions made the abolition movement the radical cause we view it as today.
#278551 in Books The University of North Carolina Press 1997-09-22 1997-09-22Ingredients: Example IngredientsOriginal language:EnglishPDF # 1 9.20 x 1.13 x 5.90l; 1.53 #File Name: 0807846759448 pages
Review
37 of 38 people found the following review helpful. What we don't remember can kill us.By Kayla RigneyFrom Euthanasia to Genocide is a very very small step. This book is the best and wisest on the subject. It illustrates exactly how easy it was for Nazis to use the American psuedo-science of "eugenics" to aclimate Germany to "life unworthy of life." How simple to use the idea of "mercy death" to rid society of "useless eaters." The members of T4 were ruthless in their quest to define and rid Nazi Germany of deformed infants; the mentally ill; the deaf; the old; the young; the indigent; the DIFFERENT. No marginalised group was safe.Of the killing centers; Hadamar is the best known -- a hub; so to speak. Nobody really knows how many people were gassed there. The buses arrived like clockwork; on schedule... Day in; day out.Significantly; there was little civilian protest until T4 moved on to private Christian instutions. The "euthenasia" program was halted "officially" after several churches protested the gassings of institutionalised patients. (Unofffically; the program went on until AFTER the end of the war!) The members of T4 were absorbed into the killing machine known as the Final Solution. Which; of course; was the goal all along....I reread The Origins of Nazi Genocide periodically just to remind myself that ANYONE can be marginalised -- including me and thee.0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Disturbing.By steve ukProbably the most in depth book on this often overlooked part of the Holocaust.The fact is the euthanasia T4 programme that existed in Germany before WW2 paved the way for the mass exterminations in Poland. Many of the personnel and equipment used in the T4 programme was and were moved from Germany and installed in the murder centres in Poland. Through tweaking this insidious system the Holocaust became the highly industrialized murder machine it eventually did. The writing is precise and backed up by numerous references.The whole ghastly system slowly becomes clear as you read through the book. A very unsettling read that questions human nature and how far people will descend. You still are left with the question" How could anyone be involved in something so utterly monstrous?"25 of 28 people found the following review helpful. Disturbing; researched account of beginnings of HolocaustBy K. L SadlerAs a Deaf person and an activist for the rights of the disabled in education and medical care; I was appalled to find out that the disabled were singled out for sterilization and euthanasia long before the Jews had been. I was even more upset that prior to medical school; I had never even heard of the willing collaboration of doctors and scientists in Germany with the Nazi political machine to rid their race of defective people (it didn't seem to matter when impairment began or how; or these people were educable and able to work). Not to ever dismiss the horror of the Jewish Holocaust and the amount of lives taken; but it is imperative that we remember and we teach that the slope leading to extermination of races began with the ideas of Social Darwinism; natural selection; and survival of the fittest; which were the scientific theories/beliefs used to justify the removal of anyone with a difference. This belief system still pervades society today; when someone like Kervorkian (who only worked with dead bodies) could take it upon himself to decide whether someone's life was of any worth; on the basis of 'normalcy'.Henry Friedlander does an excellent job of writing and researching into the lives and minds of the doctors and administrators who ran the secret programs that killed first; German children who were born with disabilities; then led to the removal from schools and homes of older children with disabilities to meet their deaths through starvation and drugs; and finally to include adults with disabilities in mass murders. It was on these people that the Nazis perfected their instruments of genocide; and yet; even at Nurenburg their suffering was dismissed as "lives unworthy of life" just because of their disabilities.This can happen again; especially with the completion of the human genome. NO laws have been suggested to curtail the use of information gleaned from the genome to prevent discrimination of any kind against the disabled. It is of great concern that the disabled community watch opponents of the Americans with Disabilities Act try to get this civil rights act revoked as being expensive; especially since it serves those who many (including Clint Eastwood apparently) feel are not productive members of society. The slippery slope begins at this point; and with these mindsets.It is imperative that students of medicine and students of science be made to read this book. It is only through education and remembering the children and families whose lives were destroyed that we can avoid allowing this Medical Holocaust from ever happening again. Karen Sadler; Science Education; University of Pittsburgh
