Slavery and the American South

Slavery and the American SouthEdited by Winthrop D. JordanWith essays and commentaries by Roger D. Abrahams, William Dusinberre, Laura F. Edwards, Annette Gordon-Reed, Ariela Gross, Walter Johnson, Norrece T. Jones, Jr., Jan Lewis, James Oakes, Robert Olwell, Peter S. Onuf, and Sterling Stuckey.In 1900 very few historians were exploring the institution of slavery in the South. But in the next half century the culture of slavery became a dominating theme in Southern historiography. In the 1970s it was the subject of the first Chancellor's Symposium in Southern History held at the University of Mississippi. Since then, scholarly interest in slavery has proliferated ever more widely. In fact, the editor of this retrospective volume states that since the 1970s "the expansion has resulted in a corpus that has a huge number of components--scores, even hundreds, rather than mere dozens." He states that "no such gathering could possibly summarize all the changes of those twenty-five years."Hence, for the Chancellor Porter L. Fortune Symposium in Southern History in the year 2000, instead of providing historical summary, the participants were invited to formulate thoughts arising from their own special interests and experiences. Each paper was complemented by a learned, penetrating reaction. In this excellent collection of historical essays and commentaries, noted historians develop and sustain an engaging and provocative series of historical arguments about slavery in the American South.The collection of papers includes the following: "Logic and Experience: Thomas Jefferson's Life in the Law" by Annette Gordon-Reed, with commentary by Peter S. Onuf; "The Peculiar Fate of the Bourgeois Critique of Slavery" by James Oakes, with commentary by Walter Johnson; "Reflections on Law, Culture, and Slavery" by Ariela Gross, with commentary by Laura F. Edwards; "Rape in Black and White: Sexual Violence in the Testimony of Enslaved and Free Americans" by Norrece T. Jones, Jr., with commentary by Jan Lewis; "The Long History of a Low Place: Slavery on the South Carolina Coast, 1670-1870" by Robert Olwell, with commentary by William Dusinberre; "Paul Robeson and Richard Wright on the Arts and Slave Culture" by Sterling Stuckey, with commentary by Roger D. Abrahams.Winthrop D. Jordan (deceased) was William F. Winter Professor of History and Professor of African American Studies at the University of Mississippi.