Overview

Frederick Douglass (1818--1895) was a prolific writer and public speaker whose impact on American literature and history has been long studied by historians and literary critics. Yet as political theorists have focused on the legacies of such notables as W. E. B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington, Douglass's profound influence on Afro-modern and American political thought has often been undervalued. In an effort to fill this gap in the scholarship on Douglass, editor Neil Roberts and an exciting group of established and rising scholars examine the author's autobiographies, essays, speeches, and novella. Together, they illuminate his genius for analyzing and articulating core American ideals such as independence, liberation, individualism, and freedom, particularly in the context of slavery. The contributors explore Douglass's understanding of the self-made American and the way in which he expanded the notion of individual potential by arguing that citizens had a responsibility to improve not only their own situations but also those of their communities. A Political Companion to Frederick Douglass also considers the idea of agency, investigating Douglass's passionate insistence that every person in a democracy, even a slave, possesses an innate ability to act. Various essays illuminate Douglass's complex racial politics, deconstructing what seems at first to be his surprising aversion to racial pride, and others explore and critique concepts of masculinity, gender, and judgment in his oeuvre. The volume concludes with a discussion of Douglass's contributions to pre-- and post--Civil War jurisprudence.

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9780813175621

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Neil Roberts's edited collection, A Political Companion to Frederick Douglass, is a groundbreaking text in understanding one of the most important intellectuals of modernity. In addition to new tools for answering existing questions, A Political Companion to Frederick Douglass will surely inspire new questions for future generations of scholars. -- Law, Culture and the Humanities In A Political Companion to Frederick Douglass, editor Neil Roberts and fourteen contributors, including historians, literary scholars, political philosophers, and many others, offer both a useful recap of the major statements on Douglass and an inviting provocation for further work. Each segment features a constellation of essays that offer rich insights from scholarship both old and new. A fine collection. -- Political Theory Roberts has given us a splendid opportunity to rethink Douglass's political thought, which is relevant today given the discourse of white nationalism in the United States and western Europe. -- Choice

Roberts has given us a splendid opportunity to rethink Douglass's political thought, which is relevant today given the discourse of white nationalism in the United States and western Europe. -- Choice

""" A Political Companion to Frederick Douglass, edited by Neil Roberts, is an important achievement that will no doubt become an indispensable resource for scholars... One of the strengths of... this volume is the skillful blending of existing and new essays, which together produce multiple and diverse readings of Douglass on similar topics... Read alongside each other... these essays present the reader with a much more complex depiction of Douglass's political thought on freedom than would have been possible by reading each on its own."" -- Juliet Hooker, Perspectives on Politics ""In A Political Companion to Frederick Douglass, editor Neil Roberts and fourteen contributors, including historians, literary scholars, political philosophers, and many others, offer both a useful recap of the major statements on Douglass and an inviting provocation for further work. Each segment features a constellation of essays that offer rich insights from scholarship both old and new. A fine collection."" -- Political Theory ""Neil Roberts's edited collection, A Political Companion to Frederick Douglass, is a groundbreaking text in understanding one of the most important intellectuals of modernity. In addition to new tools for answering existing questions, A Political Companion to Frederick Douglass will surely inspire new questions for future generations of scholars."" -- Law, Culture and the Humanities ""Roberts has given us a splendid opportunity to rethink Douglass's political thought, which is relevant today given the discourse of white nationalism in the United States and western Europe."" -- Choice"

Author Information

Neil Roberts is associate professor of Africana studies, political theory, and the philosophy of religion at Williams College. His book Freedom as Marronage is the recipient of awards from the American Political Science Association Foundations of Political Theory section and Choice magazine, and the Association for College and Research Libraries selected the work as a Top 25 book for 2015. He is president of the Caribbean Philosophical Association.

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