Publishers Weekly
09/30/2019
Unitarian Universalist minister Buehrens (Universalists and Unitarians in America) presents an illuminating collective biography of 35 key figures from the 19th-century American transcendentalist movement. Buehrens argues that, while transcendentalism is often encountered by Americans through the lens of literature, the lives of transcendentalists demonstrate that their beliefs led them to passionate activism intended to reform—even revolutionize—politics and society. Whether through projects such as the Brook Farm experiment in communal living, urban social ministries such as a refuge for women fleeing domestic abuse, or organized resistance to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, transcendentalists labored to address the social problems of their day. However, Buehrens’s claim that transcendentalists “sparked” or gave “rise to nothing less than the start of a second American revolution” overreaches. Many of the causes transcendentalists took up (such as abolition) predate the rise of transcendentalism in 1830s New England. Also, the persistent focus on white male leadership (when figures such as Lewis Hayden and Margaret Fuller appear in the text, their contributions are often framed as successful primarily due to the encouragement and promotion of white men) adds a note of disappointment to an otherwise engaging narrative. Despite this, Buehrens’s take on Transcendental activism will appeal to scholars interested in exploring antebellum social justice concerns. (Dec.)
From the Publisher
A clear, vibrant picture of the varieties of heroism that appear in battles for human rights.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“An . . . engaging narrative. Buehrens’s take on Transcendental activism will appeal to scholars interested in exploring antebellum social justice concerns.”
—Publishers Weekly
“A well-written introduction to the Transcendentalists and a complement to Philip Gura’s more idea-driven American Transcendentalism.”
—Library Journal
“The book is a historic-biography which also serves as welcome primer on ‘how to become more self-transcendent in these difficult times.’”
—The Boston Globe
“A deftly organized, comprehensively detailed, soundly documented, expertly written, thought-provoking and unique contribution to both community and academic library American Social & Cultural History collections.”
—Midwest Book Review
“Buehrens skillfully traces the relationships between the Transcendentalists and other leading activists of the nineteenth century, demonstrating how vital these relationships were in shaping not only the individuals involved but entire reform movements. Conflagration provides one of the most extensive portraits of the Transcendentalists to date and helps explain why they continue to fascinate and inspire us.”
—Nicole C. Kirk, Frank and Alice Schulman Professor of Unitarian Universalist History at Meadville Lombard Theological School
“Conflagration is brightly written, deftly organized, and strikingly well-informed narrative history. Where many, perhaps most, accounts of the Transcendentalists center on Concord, and on ideas and personal lives and on writing, Buehrens’s focus is sharply on the larger world of Boston and on ‘fervent activists and their work.’ His grasp of narrative is sure, his stories very readable indeed, and he aims not just for the scholars and specialists but for the general reader. Anyone dismayed by America’s current problems can take heart from this passionate examination of some of our better angels.”
—Robert D. Richardson, author of Emerson: The Mind on Fire
“Transcendentalism was more than Concord! While Thoreau meditated at Walden and Emerson lectured at the lyceum, their spiritual friends fought slavery, created communes, empowered women, and imagined new forms of religious community. The spiritual friendships forged in the early gatherings of the Transcendentalist Club allowed the movement to ripple outward, transforming their own time and our own. Now John Buehrens has told many forgotten Transcendentalist stories in one of the most wide-ranging histories of the movement ever written. Buehrens places Boston’s Church of the Disciples and its pastor, James Freeman Clarke, at the center of his multifaceted story. These ‘Disciples,’ among them women’s rights champion Julia Ward Howe and the Republican politician John Andrew, built bridges between Christian liturgy and post-Christian mysticism, between armed resistance to slavery and the political establishment, and between Boston and the nation. Their legacy challenges us to transform both our understanding of Transcendentalism and our own lives.”
—Dan McKanan, author of Prophetic Encounters: Religion and the American Radical Tradition
“Conflagration is a fresh and stimulating history of Transcendentalism, the radical religious and political movement that has remained enigmatic over the decades despite volumes of scholarly analysis. Rather than asking what Transcendentalism means, John Buehrens asks instead what did the Transcendentalists do? They led a dramatic shift of the course of American history, he answers, toward an ethos of world-inclusive spirituality and egalitarian social reform. His biographical perspective and his eye for the shared sympathies circulating among Transcendentalist adherents enlarge and enliven our understanding of the movement’s legacy. Conflagration is the book that makes it clear that Transcendentalism was indeed a movement. Its dedication to justice, comprehensive knowledge, and universal compassion are values that now seem of critical importance.”
—David M. Robinson, author of Natural Life: Thoreau’s Worldly Transcendentalism
Library Journal
12/01/2019
Buehrens looks at American Transcendentalism through the lives and perspectives of intellectuals, such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, and others who were in the vanguard of several 19th-century social reform movements. He studies the lives and deeds of the Bostonians associated with the movement and demonstrates their ongoing influence and involvement in abolitionism, gender equality, and more democratically-run churches, including the free church movement. The author also connects them to Unitarianism, Universalism, and the Disciples of Christ. Coming into their own in the decades leading up to the Civil War, the Transcendentalists garnered strength in their friendships, even if they didn't agree on tactics or the nature of their religious beliefs. Unitarian Universalist minister Buehrens (past president, Christian Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations; Understanding the Bible) studies the movement through a lens on the lives of its leaders, allowing for nuances that might otherwise be lost. VERDICT A well-written introduction to the Transcendentalists and a complement to Philip Gura's more idea-driven American Transcendentalism.—Augustine J. Curley, Newark Abbey, NJ
Kirkus Reviews
2019-09-25
A detailed account of how the New England transcendentalists and their church allies promoted and supported the battles of abolitionism and women's rights.
Buehrens (Universalists and Unitarians in America: A People's History, 2011, etc.), the former president of the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations and author, returns with an inspiring history of men and women devoted to various forms of liberation. Some of the author's principals are well known—Emerson, Thoreau, Julia Ward Howe, and other notables of the era and movement—but numerous others step out from history's shadows and reveal themselves to be quite deserving of the attention Buehrens awards them. Charles Follen, Frederic Henry Hedge, James Freeman Clarke, Caroline Wells Healy Dall, Lydia Maria Francis Child—these and numerous others played key roles in abolitionism and/or women's rights, and the author gives them their due. Some other celebrated names appear, as well: Nathaniel Hawthorne, Charles Darwin (many transcendentalists embraced On the Origin of Species), Frederick Douglass, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Emily Dickinson, and, especially, John Brown. Buehrens follows him from Ohio to Kansas to Boston (two visits there, including one to the bedside of Charles Sumner, who was recovering from his assault in the Senate by Preston Brooks) to Harpers Ferry and to his death. The transcendentalists, though troubled by Brown's violence, supported his goals, and both Emerson and Thoreau paid tribute to him after his death. "Brown was no religious liberal," writes the author, "but rather a staunch Calvinist, with the feel of an Old Testament patriarch and the fervor of a prophet." The tone of the text is somewhat academic, occasionally dry, but the stories themselves, as Buehrens points out, tell us as much about ourselves as about those long gone. These people remain, he writes, "quite near," and we can take inspiration from "their prophetic insight, courage, and example."
A clear, sometimes-vibrant picture of the varieties of heroism that appear in battles for human rights.
