Recounts Weld's intense childhood, his stormy religious conversion, his entry into the world of reform, and finally, his rejection of public life.

During the 1830s the United States experienced a wave of movements for social change over temperance, the abolition of slavery, anti-vice activism, and a host of other moral reforms. Michael Young argues for the first time in Bearing Witness against Sin that together they represented a distinctive new style of mobilization—one that prefigured contemporary forms of social protest by underscoring the role of national religious structures and cultural schemas. In this book, Young identifies a new strain of protest that challenged antebellum Americans to take personal responsibility for reforming social problems.In this period activists demanded that social problems like drinking and slaveholding be recognized as national sins unsurpassed in their evil and immorality. This newly awakened consciousness undergirded by a confessional style of protest, seized the American imagination and galvanized thousands of people. Such a phenomenon, Young argues, helps explain the lives of charismatic reformers such as William Lloyd Garrison and the Grimké sisters, among others. Marshalling lively historical materials, including letters and life histories of reformers, Bearing Witness against Sin is a revelatory account of how religion lay at the heart of social reform.

The Oberlin College mission to Jamaica, begun in the 1830s, was an ambitious, and ultimately troubled, effort to use the example of emancipation in the British West Indies to advance the domestic agenda of American abolitionists. White Americans hoped to argue that American slaves, once freed, could be absorbed productively into the society that had previously enslaved them, but their "civilizing mission" did not go as anticipated. Gale L. Kenny's illuminating study examines the differing ideas of freedom held by white evangelical abolitionists and freed people in Jamaica and explores the consequences of their encounter for both American and Jamaican history. Kenny finds that white Americans--who went to Jamaica intending to assist with the transition from slavery to Christian practice and solid citizenship--were frustrated by liberated blacks' unwillingness to conform to Victorian norms of gender, family, and religion. In tracing the history of the thirty-year mission, Kenny makes creative use of available sources to unpack assumptions on both sides of this American-Jamaican interaction, showing how liberated slaves in many cases were able not just to resist the imposition of white mores but to redefine the terms of the encounter.

In the late 1820s Sarah and Angelina Grimké traded their elite position as daughters of a prominent white slaveholding family in Charleston, South Carolina, for a life dedicated to abolitionism and advocacy of women's rights in the North. After the Civil War, discovering that their late brother had had children with one of his slaves, the Grimké sisters helped to educate their nephews and gave them the means to start a new life in postbellum America. The nephews, Archibald and Francis, went on to become well-known African American activists in the burgeoning civil rights movement and the founding of the NAACP. Spanning 150 eventful years, this is an inspiring tale of a remarkable family that transformed itself and America.

Political correctness, idealizing the oppressed, and an affinity for authoritarian and charismatic leaders are all parts of what Ellis calls "the dark side of the left."

I’ve long believed that market need and competency must have the catalyst of passion if a company is to have a competitive advantage. Omar Khan and Paul B. Brown practice what they preach and tear into the liberation of passion with raw gusto and exhilarating energy. Reading this book gives leaders the opportunity to improve the power of their assets several-fold without a penny of capital investment. If that doesn't impassion you, nothing will. Alan Weiss, Ph.D. Author, Million Dollar Consulting Finally, a solid business book with practical advice to produce life-changing and profit-making results. Liberating passion by strengthening relationships throughout an organization has been one of the most neglected areas in business literature. But no more! As the authors state, passion IS natural and when it is liberated, outstanding results soon follow. The business world today is so thoroughly global, you need ideas and inspiration from vast global experience. Omar Khan and Sensei International are world-class in helping leaders and teams emotionally engage each other, releasing productive passion and focusing it for powerful results. If you want to upgrade your leadership and uplift your team, this is the book to show you how. Ron Kaufman Author, UP Your Service! Chairman, UP Your Service! College Omar Khan and Paul B. Brown bring clarity and focus to the issue that many businesses overlook—people. Any business without its people would cease to exist. Time and again, I have seen otherwise great leaders brought down by poor leadership development skills. Here Omar draws on his experience in engaging leaders and teams across the world and in collaboration with the ever insightful Paul Brown distills the essence of the real value behind great teams, great talent and great leadership. In an otherwise abstract genre, they bring transformative and skillfully applicable ideas straight into the executive and management suite. Sam Moon CEO, DNMstrategies Limited Managing Director, Asia Pacific, BusinessWeek Events The tools described in this timely book create powerful impact for global teams. You’ll read here about fostering appropriate intimacy and emotional maturity through removing unhelpful defensiveness, about the creative capacity of dialogues conducted in a World Cafe format, of brave conversations, of creating “bold courageous steps” to bring strategy vividly to life, and to giving future-based requests to each other that simultaneously affirm and challenge our potential as leaders. I heartily recommend that you not only read about these methodologies, but then passionately apply them. You’ll be very glad you did! Shonaid Jemmett-Page Global Senior Vice-President, Home and Personal Care, Finance and Information Unilever People and organizations can be dramatically transformed by authentic conversations, a true sense of common purpose and community and removing the “masks” that hide real feelings and beliefs. If the leader can show the courage to liberate the suppressed passion of his team and unleash the often hidden energy, it can deliver incredibly powerful results. It is only through genuine engagement with all stakeholders that this process can start. Removing the “passion killers” is a great beginning. I hope that reading Liberating Passion will be a catalyst for many of you to move your teams from first into fifth gear. Fred Combe Managing Director, NATUS

Abolitionist, women's rights activist, and social reformer, Angelina Grimké (1805-79) was among the first women in American history to seize the public stage in pursuit of radical social reform. "I will lift up my voice like a trumpet," she proclaimed, "and show this people their transgressions." And when she did lift her voice in public, on behalf of the public, she found that, in creating herself, she might transform the world. In the process, Grimké crossed the wires of race, gender, and power, and produced explosions that lit up the world of antebellum reform. Among the most remarkable features of Angelina Grimké's rhetorical career was her ability to stage public contests for the soul of America—bringing opposing ideas together to give them voice, depth, and range to create new and more compelling visions of social change. Angelina Grimké: Rhetoric, Identity, and the Radical Imagination is the first full-length study to explore the rhetorical legacy of this most unusual advocate for human rights. Stephen Browne examines her epistolary and oratorical art and argues that rhetoric gave Grimké a means to fashion not only her message but her very identity as a moral force.

DIVThis very ambitious study reads the American Left by way of its defense campaigns for a range of left-wing heroes including the abolitionists, communists, anarchists and the Panthers./div