{"product_id":"abolition-and-the-rise-of-james-s-finley-9781469694290","title":"Abolition and the Rise of Us Environmentalism: The Literature and Politics of Free Soil","description":"By the 1840s, many Americans recognized that the institution of slavery was destroying Southern landscapes while threatening to expand into the West. An increasing number of white Northerners believed that surrounding areas where slavery was legal with so-called free soil would hasten its collapse and forestall an environmental crisis. James S. Finley addresses this understudied intersection of US antislavery and environmental politics in the two decades before the Civil War, arguing that the debate over free soil--what it should look like and who should have access to this land--was an underrecognized precursor of modern American environmentalist movements.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThrough the work of a group of Black writers and thinkers, the Free-Soil movement's white supremacist underpinnings were challenged by an ecosocial vision that centered democratic communities and sustainable labor. By analyzing the output of authors who advocated for \u003ci\u003etruly\u003c\/i\u003e free soil, such as Frederick Douglass and Henry Highland Garnet, Finley finds commonalities in their attempts to reenvision communal relations between individuals and the land with contemporary movements for racial and environmental justice.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e James S. Finley\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 1469694298\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9781469694290\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e University of North Carolina Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 08\/11\/2026\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 238\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Hardcover","brand":"James S. Finley","offers":[{"title":"Hardcover","offer_id":48743143538943,"sku":"9781469694290","price":99.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/abolition-and-the-rise-of-james-s-finley-9781469694290","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}