Slavery and the American South Edited by Winthrop D. Jordan With 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.
