David S. Reynolds is a Distinguished Professor at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. His book Abe: Abraham Lincoln in His Times (winner of the Lincoln Prize and the Abraham Lincoln Book Prize; among the Wall Street Journal’s Top 10 Books of the Year) is the basis for the Apple TV+ docuseries Lincoln’s Dilemma. Reynolds is the author or editor of 16 books, including Walt Whitman’s America (winner of the Bancroft Prize and the Ambassador Book Award), John Brown, Abolitionist (winner of the Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Prize), Mightier than the Sword: Uncle Tom’s Cabin and the Battle for America, Waking Giant: America in the Age of Jackson, and Beneath the American Renaissance (Winner of the Christian Gauss Award). He is a regular reviewer for the New York Review of Books, the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times Book Review. His articles have appeared in the New York Times, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The Huffington Post, Daily Beast, Boston Globe, and elsewhere.
Uncle Tom Revisited: Rescuing the Real Character from the Caricature
Today the phrase “Uncle Tom” evokes a powerfully negative image in American society. It depicts a weak, subservient, cringing black man who betrays his race and its struggle for liberation. David Reynolds, an English professor in the Graduate School of the City University of New … Read MoreUncle Tom Revisited: Rescuing the Real Character from the Caricature