Combining established work with that of recent provocative scholarship on the antebellum South, this collection of essays puts students in touch with some of the central debates in this dynamic field. It includes substantial excerpts from the work of Eugene Genovese and Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, who lay out the influential interpretation of the South as a `paternalistic' society and culture, and contributions from more recent scholars who provide dissenting or alternative interpretations of the relations between masters and slaves and men and women. The essays draw on a wide range of disciplines, including economics, psychology and anthropology to investigate the nature of plantation and family life in the South. Explanatory notes guide the reader through each essay and the Editor's introduction places the work in its historiographical context.
Biography
Edited by Harris, J. William
`This should prove a useful book for undergraduate courses, and can certainly be recommended to those making up reading lists for seminars or tutorials. It will give students a gook flavour of the continuing vigour of the debates about American chattel slavery.' I
`... this collection reveals a lively contemporary interest in the dimensions of racial cultural autonomy, in the social dynamics of the family, and in the balance of power within the family as a battleground of conflict and collaboration between the genders.' - Buckingham Univ Bruce Collins Social History Society Bulletin
