December 2013 'Reviews in American History'

We recently noted the release of the December 2013 issue of Reviews in American History (full content available to subscribers only, unfortunately). Here are some other items of interest:

"Lincoln, Liberty, and the Law," by John M. Belohlavek (University of South Florida, Tampa) reviews Louis P. Masur, Lincoln’s Hundred Days: The Emancipation Proclamation and the War for the Union (The Belknap Press of Harvard University, 2012); Harold Holzer, Emancipating Lincoln: The Proclamation in Text, Context, and Memory (Harvard University Press, 2012); and John Fabian Witt, Lincoln’s Code: The Laws of War in American History (Free Press, 2012).

In "The Hemings War," Henry Wiencek (independent scholar and author of the controversial Master of the Mountain) reviews M. Andrew Holowchak, Framing a Legend: Exposing the Distorted History of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings (Prometheus Books, 2013).

In her State of the Field essay, "The Complicated Histories of Emancipation," Manisha Sinha (University of Massachusetts, Amherst) reviews James Oakes, Freedom National: The Destruction of Slavery in the United States, 1861–1865 (W. W. Norton, 2013); David S. Cecelski, The Fire of Freedom: Abraham Galloway and the Slaves’ Civil War (The University of North Carolina Press, 2012); and Christopher Hager, Word By Word: Emancipation and the Act of Writing (Harvard University Press, 2013).

In "Quakers, Slavery, and Racial Justice," Michael Birkel (Earlham College) considers Brycchan Carey, From Peace to Freedom: Quaker Rhetoric and the Birth of American Antislavery, 1657–1761 (Yale University Press, 2012) and Allan W. Austin, Quaker Brotherhood: Interracial Activism and the American Friends Service Committee, 1917–1950 (University of Illinois Press, 2012).
 
"Brandeis, Gitlow, and the Supreme Court’s Transformation During the Interwar Years," by William G. Ross (Cumberland School of Law, Samford University) reviews Marc Lendler, Gitlow v. New York: Every Idea an Incitement (University Press of Kansas, 2012) and Melvin I. Urofsky, Louis D. Brandeis: A Life (Schocken Books, 2009).