Uncle Tom's Cabin

I picked this up in oxfam out of curiosity, I knew the name but didn't really know anything about it. It's actually a very good read. The characters are sometimes a little broadly drawn, some in particular a bit too perfectly good to believe, but it excels in portraying the pains of an living under an evil system, and how even good men cannot help doing bad things.

It's been attacked for enforcing racial stereotypes, which it does, but in the wider context the attack seems a bit petty. The term 'uncle Tom' has also become a term of abuse for a subservient black man, which again is understandable but a bit unfair.

I'm no more disgusted by slavery than I was before, it would hard to be, but I have a far better understanding of why otherwise good people kept slaves.

Anyway it's the only novel I know of that can claim to have started a war.