With support from the University of Richmond

History News Network

History News Network puts current events into historical perspective. Subscribe to our newsletter for new perspectives on the ways history continues to resonate in the present. Explore our archive of thousands of original op-eds and curated stories from around the web. Join us to learn more about the past, now.

Charles Rappleye: Wins book awards for his study of slavery and the brothers who founded Brown

Charles Rappleye's Sons of Providence: The Brown Brothers, the Slave Trade, and the American Revolution has won awards for the best book on the Revolution in 2006 from both the Philadelphia and New York City American Revolution Roundtables.

The book explores the lives of the divergent courses of the Brown brothers, who are associated with the founding of Brown University. Both started out as slave traders, but eventually one of them became an ardent abolitionist.

Rappleye is a free-lance journalist. His previous book told the story of a somewhat obscure mobster.

This is the first time a single book has won the endorsement of both roundtables, according to Thomas Fleming.