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Radio War Nerd EP #446 — John Brown's Insurgency, feat. Jeff Stein (Patreon)

Published:
2024-05-29 18:45:42
Edited:
2024-05-29 18:47:09
Imported:
2024-05
Tags:

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Content

Guest: Jeff Stein, journalist

Recorded: May 27, 2024

The War Nerd recovers from an intergalactic journey to New Zealand, in time for a special Memorial Day US Civil War episode in which we talk John Brown with Jeff Stein, host of the American Carnage podcast.

Check out Jeff Stein's podcast American Carnage. Follow Jeff on Twitter, read Jeff's articles in the Washington Post.

Maps & Images

*Bleeding Kansas & John Brown

*Harpers Ferry

CHECK OUT THE WAR NERD US CIVIL WAR SERIES:

EP #295: The US Civil War, Part 1: Count Adam Gurowski

EP #297: The US Civil War, Part 2: Bleeding Kansas

EP #300: The US Civil War, Part 3: First Battle of Bull Run

EP #303: The US Civil War, Part 4: McClellan, Treason & The Battle of Antietam

EP #307: The US Civil War, Part 5: Vicksburg

EP #311: The US Civil War, Part 6: Buchanan's Treason & The Mormon War

EP #315: The US Civil War, Part 7: German '48ers, with Matt Christman

EP #323: The US Civil War, Part 8: Thomas, Hood & Southern Honor

EP #327: The US Civil War, Part 9: War on the Water

EP #335: The US Civil War, Part 10: Battle of Shiloh 

EP #340: The US Civil War, Part 11: The Culture Wars (Live in Brooklyn)

EP #352: The US Civil War, Part 12: Gen. John Pope & Second Battle of Manassas

EP #362: The US Civil War, Part 13: Civil War Movies, feat. Eileen Jones

EP #378: The US Civil War, Part 14: The USCT (US Colored Troops)

EP #386: The US Civil War, Part 15: Gettysburg Aftermath, Six Million Pounds of Rotting Meat

EP #409: The US Civil War, Part 16: Women's Civil War Diaries 

EP #417: The US Civil War, Part 17: Women's Civil War Diaries, Pt. 2

Music interlude by Brendon Anderegg. Check out music from his group Mountains here. 

Total time: 1:18:38

Direct link to this episode's mp3 here

*

Subscribe to Radio War Nerd at patreon.com/radiowarnerd

Sound production by Telescope Audio

Check out the Radio War Nerd Merch store here!

Order your print or ebook of John Dolan's new book Erdogan Pizza: Dispatches from a Violent & Grotesque World

Files

Comments

Quinn

YES overdue for a dedicated john brown episode

Michael

John was one of the most effective and important abolitionist. His birthday was earlier month. Thank you guys for making this episode.

NYCM&AHole

Lol too many John browns - two of them are YouTube geartubers, one of whom I follow and makes Patreon videos about guitar amplifiers and speakers and provides Patreon subscribers with speaker sims.

Karl Childers

hell yes John Brown the original crazy white boy

Isaac Suárez

Also a formerly decent WR for the Arizona Cardinals

Isaac Suárez

John Brown is character that much more closely parallels figures from anticolonial struggles than he does anyone else in US history. He is America's Miguel Hidalgo, Dedan Kimathi, James Connolly, or Henry John McCracken (ie a rebel leader who stood up for a brutally oppressed national underclass- one who fought and died against an overwhelmingly superior force.) None of these men were saints, but few can argue in retrospect against their respective causes (such men make for great mural art or noms de guerre, but are not cherished by anglophone historians.) I think this is why he is so ambivalently remembered by American Whigs. He flies in the face of two of their most cherished assumptions- that the "slope of history bends toward justice" and "social change can only come through peaceful political means." In this respect, Brown is a bad dream of American liberalism and a bogeyman of the conservative movement. He is the embodiment of being “right too early” or “right for the wrong reasons.”

MB

To John's point about a reverence for the ability to appropriately quote the Quran, there's a really beautiful example of a a terrifying exchange of verse of this ilk between a vizier and cleric in Meša Selimović's Death and the Dervish.

N

An important point to bring up that supports the idea that Harper's Ferry was basically just a really big underground railroad raid is that Harriet Tubman was supposed to come but fell ill! And her whole deal was the super sneaky backwoods raids and moving people up to Canada. The fact she was planning on being there tells us they were not planning some sort of general uprising, but an inflitration

American Carnage

As a longtime rwn subscriber, I loved being on. Ty guys for listening! Jeff

Cameron Young

Excellent episode thanks for the conversation

Horseloverfat

That range is The Remarkables — so awesome

HeyB00B00

Helllll yessss gimme some some civil war!

Lo

Jeff is a good lad who has done consistently good work, so him having an appearance on here is very nice

Dorst Savijeski

Sorry haven't found the mental clarity to listen to this episode because I was thinking about Larry...Summers. Being someone who doesn't like to be told where to piss and in which direction. It comes as a suprise. That I think we need more Larry..Summers.

Don Tickles

Any reading series suggested for this?

Quinn

DuBois John Brown biography is a great history and besides that incredibly beautiful writing

Nosreffej

New Zealand has become a huge Downhill Mountain Bike off-season training location for a lot of the top riders. Coronet Peak in Queenstown is a big one.

RDB

Jeffyyyyy! Jeff!

Josh

The passage on the Potawatomi Massacre goes so fucking hard 🔥🔥🔥

Christopher Small

To the point about John Brown's followers being a motley crew, that diversity in the Northern side really does seem to be something that people are starting to wake up to about the Civil War, and I hope it continues to work its way into the cultural understanding of the war. I really want to see a Civil War Kelley's Heroes where a Wide Awake, an escaped slave, a German 48er and Fenian team up to, like, steal a train load of Confederate gold or something

Demented Avenger

Everyone was talking about how the South had done all the first strikes and saying, "See? They're starting all the violence!" and then getting upset that Brown did his raid. Did these abolitionists really want to win, or did they just want to feel superior? Same thing with a lot of the tut-tutting of the 10/7 attacks—yeah, there were some really awful parts of these attacks like the kidnapping of civilians and the hitting of the rave (the latter of which was probably unplanned, as raves are ephemeral), but Hamas had every right to strike the Israeli military bases inside Israel and kill Israeli soldiers. Or, put it this way: Liberals want the liberation movements they support to affirm their goodness. I want mine to win.

Michael S. Judge

I've been through Hannibal, Missouri on many many occasions, and I would believe that Twain story as pure fact

Michael S. Judge

person-for-person, on average, it's easily the ugliest city in the United States

Ander Pierce

I loved Midnight Rising, and have been a Brown buff for a long time.

T

This ep makes me miss Matt Christman

Anthony Schiappa

Great ep. Any suggested reading on John’s anecdote about Garibaldi’s plan? I’m familiar with that story generally but not that specific detail.

J P 3

I tend to think of Brown as the final evolution of a particular American type. A religious fanatic, strongly rooted in Calvinism / Puritanism -- a throwback to the 1600s. The difference between Brown and the early Puritans is that Brown seemed to have integrated a much more expansive view of the "elect" to that included Native Americans, people of other religious faiths, he had a very expansive view of who was part of the human family (and egalitarian attitudes regarding the role of men and women). Brown's egalitarian attitudes survived the Civil War, however, the influence of Calvinism and Puritanism I see as a casualty of the era that emerged out of the Civil War. e.g. thanks to waves of immigration, the development of the country into a more full-blown capitalist system, the experience of a major civil war, and the end of slavery. I'm sure the strains are still present in the American culture, but it is more of a minor note, rather than a dominant feature, the way that it was in the northeast into the early 1800s.

xnfec

The top five most amazing Americans (from a RWN perspective) who ever lived would be an idea for a fun christmas episode. You could extend it to the world for new year.

Angleton

I visited the John Brown Museum in Osawatomie, Kansas on October 7th, 2023.

Maciek

How is it? Worth visiting? Or more of an ‘if you happen to by traveling through Kansas’ type roadside attraction?

Angleton

I thought it was awesome because I am a huge John Brown fan. I would say if you are ever in Kansas City for some reason I would recommend visiting Osawatomie, Kansas.

Maciek

Can you explain which bit of browns final evolution is particularly American? Are you talking about the violence in particular? Because to me, I don’t see what so many people find strange about the violence or put any sort of cultural or political influence on it. I just think it’s within every human to kill to protect life. And what differentiates people is your acceptance of your own death with respect to the consequences of the violence. For example, we could see ourselves killing a complete stranger who we witness attempting to fatally hurt a child (as we perceive it in the moment and if we have the means necessary at hand). But if you don’t see the violence with your own eyes, but you know with your heart of hearts that the violence occurred, the calculation of getting away with it changes without us necessarily being consciously aware of that decision making process. It’s how radio war nerd talks about war veteran we being ok with murder if these is a collective acceptance in society of the moral cause. So I see brown as the same thing, whatever happens in his life whether learned or biological, he basically just didn’t fear the consequences or death. And this allows him to act on what everyone around him generally feels.

J P 3

Brown was pursuing a cause that did not enjoy a mass base of support and his position on the issue was on the fringe of American politics. However, I see him as "made in America", because I see his form of Calvinism and in particular, his focus on anti-slavery politics as unique to the United States. Maybe I am just ignorant. e.g. there were plenty of religiously inspired people who took part in the anti-slavery cause on both sides of the Atlantic -- but for most these actions involved non-violent forms of resistance and were rooted in moral disapproval. Brown's commitments seem to go way beyond just "moral disapproval". His was a religious fanatic who believed he was on a mission from God to end slavery. Chattel slavery existed in other parts of the western hemisphere too, but I am hard pressed to think of any Brown-like figure emerging in any of these other countries. In my view, part of what set Brown apart was his religious faith, and a particular form of Calvinism that had its roots in Puritan immigration to the U.S. starting in the 1600s. To the best of my understanding, Puritans didn't play a significant role in the colonization of other parts of the western hemisphere.

J P 3

Should note too when I described Brown as a "fanatic" I am using the term as neutrally as possible, not as a pejorative. I think his cause was obviously justified, and his methods seem to be the work of premeditation and deliberation -- not just random acts of violence. For the most part he selected specific targets for a reason, and the purpose of the violence was calculated more for its psychological effects than its material impact. e.g. in my view the Slaveocracy's over-reaction and hysteria to Brown, helped to accelerate the end of slavery, and precipitate the Civil War. if the South had treated Brown's violence as a one-off, and as an aberration, as someone who was a complete outlier, rather than as a potential source of a mass political movement, slavery probably could have persisted for much longer in the U.S. Brown understood the mindset of his adversaries better than they did his. However, I also take Brown at his word, that he acted as he did out of religious conviction, and saw himself as an instrument of God's will.

Peter Z

Stunning when it's reflected in the lake. Apparently named because the range runs true North/South. (Māori: Kawarau).