Analysis Of Tony Horwitz's 'Midnight Rising'

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Tony Horwitz is the author of Midnight Rising: John Brown and The Raid That Sparked The Civil War. Horwitz was born Washington D.C., a graduate of Brown University and Columbia University School of Journalism. Before becoming an author, Horwitz was a newspaper reporter, starting in Indiana. He later became an amazing best selling author, his latest work is Midnight Rising. In the novel, he discusses John Brown’s early life and explains the raid he led into Harpers Ferry, Virginia. Horwitz theorizes how John Brown sparks the Civil War. The author began by introducing John Brown, the main character of Midnight Rising. John Brown was named after his grandfather, “a Connecticut farmer and Revolutionary War officer who married off to fight the
This gives the readers a form of trust in the author, his sources seem dependable and improves Horwitz understanding of the subject he’s talking about. One of the sources he uses is a poem by Langston Hughes, a poem that addressed black Americans and John Brown’s raid. Hughes describes John Brown as a hero when he states, “Took twenty-one companions, white and black, went to shoot your way to freedom…”(Horwitz,2011,p.937). This primary sources is used to identify the type of person John Brown is viewed as. There are authors who speak differently of John Brown and this is proven in the following two monographs. The novel “Fire from the Midst of You: A Religious Life of John Brown” by Louis A. DeCaro reveals Brown’s roots in Puritan abolitionism and theorizes that Brown’s reasoning for the raid was because of his religious preferences. The second novel is Patriotic Treason: John Brown and the Soul of America by Evan Carton. Here, in this monograph the author makes it very clear that John Brown fought for slaves because he truly cared for one to have equal rights. The previous historiographies differ in believing why John Brown proceeded in fighting for the slaves. However, they do share a similarity in explaining Brown’s early life and all three authors do favor John Brown’s

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