37 Slavery and Southern Society (U.S. Civil War Reading List)
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This article is from the U.S. Civil War FAQ, by Justin M. Sanders jsanders@jaguar1.usouthal.edu with numerous contributions by others.
37 Slavery and Southern Society (U.S. Civil War Reading List)
Fogel and Engerman, Time on the Cross. 1974.
A comprehensive and HIGHLY controversial study of slavery in the Old
South. Though the authors are not apologists for slavery, they do conclude
that slavery was not as bad as it had been made out to be and had a number
of positive redeeming features. A long literature has followed this book
which has largely, though not entirely, repudiated it. It is probably
unwise to read this book unless you also intend to start in on the
following discussion, some of which is also summarized below.
Paul David, et al, Reckoning with Slavery.
A straightforward, point by point rebuttal of "Time on the Cross" (see
below) by a number of respected historians and economists. If you read
"Time on the Cross," you should really read this one also so as to get
both sides of the issue at once.
Eugene Genovese, Roll Jordan Roll: The World the Slaves Made. 1974.
Published the same year as Fogel and Engerman's 'Time on the Cross'
(see above), Genovese offers a Marxist perspective of US slavery. The
book describes the social aspects of control, both of slave by master and
of master by slave, and analyzes in depth the real relationship between
master and slave. Genovese also wrote "The Political Economy of Slavery"
(1965) which suggests that slavery was becoming economically unviable.
Peter Kolchin, American Slavery, 1619-1877 (New York: Hill & Wang, 1993)
xv, 237pp, 6 tables, 10pp notes, 34pp Bibliographic essay, index.
Peter Kolchin, in this slim volume, surveys the 250 year history of
slavery in the United States. It is a well written and well made book
highly recommended as an up-to-date review of slavery as well as of the
historiography of slavery. Kolchin discusses the origins of slavery, the
development of an African-America culture among the slaves, the effect of
the American Revolution on the institution, antebellum slavery, and the
end of slavery through the Civil War and Reconstruction. A bibliographic
essay, equal in length to one of the chapters, completes the book and
provides numerous references for further reading.
Rollin G. Osterweis, Romanticism and Nationalism in the Old South
(LSU Press, 1949)
Studies the factors that influenced antebellum Southern thought and
idealism.
Ulrich B. Phillips, Life and Labor in the Old South (Little, Brown 1929).
A sympathetic study of plantation economy and culture.
Kenneth M. Stampp, The Peculiar Institution. 1956.
Another broad treatment of Southern slavery, but somewhat more
accepted and more traditional than Fogel and Engerman's.
Gavin Wright, Old South New South. 1988.
A comparison of the Southern economy before and after the war, with
emphasis on the effects of slavery and its abolition.
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