Review: A must read for everyone
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 12 18, 2013
I decided, after many years of just thinking about it, to read Uncle Tom's Cabin in it's entirety and I was pleasantly surprised and also a bit sad.  Surprised because the story captured me in it's snare but also sad because the term "Uncle Tom" has become a perjorative.  Uncle Tom is in fact a hero and you will have to read the story to find out why.  Harriet Beecher Stowe was impelled to write this story after a federal law was passed in 1850 that would require free states to return runaway slaves who made it north to freedom back to their owners in slave states.  The authors passion is evident throughout the story and she used the characters of the story to ably present many of the arguments for and against slavery as well as presenting the human cost to men, women and children who were sold into bondage and the moral and ethical cost to whites and others involved in the slave trade (although, if you have ever seen pictures of slaves nothing can ever put into words the real cost).  This topic is still relevant today because slavery has not really ended in our world.  It has changed and is not always evident as slavery but it is still with us.  As are many of the same arguments that were made two hundred years ago to justify slavery, prejudice and the subjugation of people.  It is a bit hard at first to get through the narrative because the words and structure are becoming archaic to current readers but I encourage anyone who has not read the book to put down the cliff notes and read it in it's entirety.  It is an education as well as a compelling story that deserves to be discussed and argued as part of current history, morals, and ethics.