Horace Greeley: Champion of American Freedom

Surveying the astounding range of Horace Greeley's engagement in the public life of the mid-nineteenth century-the important role he played in progressive movements from temperance and Fourierism to emancipation and land reform; his establishment of capitalist utopian communities in New York, Colorado, and North Carolina; and his influence on politics and popular opinion through his thirty-year editorship of the New York Tribune-historian Williams emphasizes a common theme: Greeley dedicated his life to promoting freedom. In this, as in his casual racism and misogyny, he was a man of his age, a period when the proper meaning of freedom was the subject of intense public debate and, ultimately, war. The book accordingly tells Greeley's story through snapshots of the period and its prevailing passions, interspersed with contemporary comments by and about Greeley; the result is a brisk tour of the newspaperman's life and times that often avoids objective assessment or insight into the inner man. Williams' and Greeley's reflections on the republican ideals that rocked the world during the latter's lifetime are intriguing, but brief discussions of topics like Greeley's strained but crucial relationship with Abraham Lincoln leave the reader wishing for a closer look.