In his carefully researched book, The Fearless Benjamin Lay: The Quaker Dwarf Who Became the First Revolutionary Abolitionist, Marcus Rediker provides layers of detail that demonstrate how Lay (1682–1759) fits within the transatlantic Quaker context of the early eighteenth century, as well as its larger religious, social, and economic contexts. Specifically, Rediker uses Lay's story to provide a more nuanced history of Quakerism and its connections to abolitionism. Indeed, Rediker suggests, the origins of the abolitionist movement reach back to the early eighteenth century and were fostered and cultivated by the poor and unlearned before being embraced by Enlightenment thinkers—and ultimately the larger Quaker body—in the mid-eighteenth century and beyond.

Although Lay saw himself as an illiterate sailor and a commoner, Rediker shows him as an abolitionist, a vegetarian, an environmentalist, a philosopher, a bibliophile, and an author (6). He was a radical man who shocked his community with his dramatic displays against slavery. Lay was also an ascetic who spent the final years of his life living in a cave. By recovering this “intellectual history ‘from below,’” Rediker is able to contend that a “new genealogy of antislavery” needs to be considered (5, 148). Despite being a marginal figure, Benjamin Lay called into question the worldly ways of the Quaker elite on both sides of the Atlantic and contributed to their eventual shift toward an abolitionist mindset.

While the book begins by introducing Lay's early life, covering his time as a glover and a sailor, Rediker also places his story within his English and his Quaker contexts, thus highlighting the radical nature of the early Quaker movement. Early Quakers, he suggests, “acted out high religious drama” such as disrobing in public, in order to call sinners to repentance (17). Although Quakers of Lay's generation had moved away from such behavior, Lay drew upon the tactics of the founding generation to promote antislavery. He first encountered the evils of human bondage as a sailor, a practice he considered antithetical to the gospel. Lay believed in “the spiritual equality of all humankind” and was horrified by the number of Quakers who owned slaves or benefited financially from the slave trade (25). He thus became determined to promote reform. In relaying this story, Rediker challenges popular views of eighteenth-century Quakers: they did not collectively embrace asceticism, reject wealth and worldliness, and oppose slavery. Rediker reveals a people often blinded by the economic success that the slave trade enabled. Years of debate and discussion ensued before Quakers began to take a strong stand against slavery in the 1750s. In the context of the early eighteenth century, Lay's was a radical voice—one deemed unacceptable during his own lifetime, but that would prove influential later on. Though often forgotten, he preceded figures such as John Woolman and Anthony Benezet as a Quaker abolitionist.

The Lay that Rediker depicts was, in many ways, as prescient as he was anachronistic—drawing heavily upon tactics from the past, such as apocalyptic discourse and theatrical displays, to challenge the sins of the present with forward-thinking views about equality. Rediker makes it clear that Lay's commitment to antislavery, and his forthright way of expressing his abolitionist views, as well as other theological tensions and schisms that were woven into early Quakerism, created deep rifts between him and the Quaker hierarchy. Denied membership within his local meeting over and over again, both in England and America (where he eventually settled with his wife, Sarah), he employed the theatrical tactics of his spiritual ancestors to highlight the evils of slavery to contemporary believers—such as dressing in sackcloth to denounce slave owners in Quaker meetings, smashing his deceased wife's teacups in a public market in order to protest slave labor that was used to harvest tea and sugar, and thrusting a sword through the bladder of a pokeberry so that “blood” would splash on Quaker slave owners as he prophesied of their grim future.

Lay not only shared his perspective about slavery and other issues in dramatic public displays; he also used the pen to express his radical ideas. He eventually authored an anti-slavery text, All Slave-Keepers that Keep the Innocent in Bondage, Apostates (1738). When Quaker leadership refused to support its publication—their continuous efforts to control printed materials ultimately made Quaker texts less radical and more sterile—Lay found a way to subvert their authority. By convincing Benjamin Franklin to publish his manuscript anonymously, he was able to further convey his antislavery message.

Despite Rediker's noteworthy engagement with historiography, and the rich contextual details that he provides, there are some aspects of Lay's story that lack adequate depth and breadth. The title of the book refers to Lay as a Quaker dwarf, and there are times when Rediker suggests that Lay's experiences as someone with dwarfism had an impact on him, but there is little contextual detail that fleshes that out, or evidence that supports such claims. How might some engagement with disability studies enrich our understanding of Lay? Readers are left to wonder how dwarfism indeed had an impact on Lay and on people's reactions to him. Did his fiery nature, or his empathetic approach to those who suffered, or his disdain for slavery link back to his own experiences with disability? Did the lack of respect he experienced have anything to do with his size? Similarly, Rediker could engage more with the history of print culture in order to provide a better contextual understanding of Lay's vast library and how issues of class played into his authorship, reading, and publishing.

Notwithstanding the noted omissions, Rediker has written a compelling narrative about a neglected figure that teaches readers much about the Atlantic world, Quaker history, and the origins and development of abolitionism. It is “an intellectual history ‘from below’” that encourages readers to consider the forgotten and the unlikely in order to understand major historical movements (5).