Eugene D. Genovese, Elizabeth Fox-Genovese

Broschiertes Buch

Fatal Self-Deception

Slaveholding Paternalism in the Old South

Beschreibung

Slaveholders were preoccupied with presenting slavery as a benign, paternalistic institution in which the planter took care of his family and slaves were content with their fate. In this book, Eugene D. Genovese and Elizabeth Fox-Genovese discuss how slaveholders perpetuated and rationalized this romanticized version of life on the plantation. Slaveholders' paternalism had little to do with ostensible benevolence, kindness and good cheer. It grew out of the necessity to discipline and morally justify a system of exploitation. At the same time, this book also advocates the examination of masters' relations with white plantation laborers and servants - a largely unstudied subject. Southerners drew on the work of British and European socialists to conclude that all labor, white and black, suffered de facto slavery, and they championed the South's 'Christian slavery' as the most humane and compassionate of social systems, ancient and modern.

Autor

Eugene D. Genovese is a retired professor of history. He served as chair of the Department of History at the University of Rochester and taught at other institutions. He also served as president of the Organization of American Historians and of The Historical Society and he was a member of the Executive Council of the American Historical Society. He is the author of nine other books, most recently Miss Betsey: A Memoir of Marriage.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Cambridge University Press
• Seitenzahl: 256
• Erscheinungstermin: 1. Oktober 2011
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 234mm x 156mm x 14mm
• Gewicht: 395g
• ISBN-13: 9781107605022
• ISBN-10: 1107605024
• Artikelnr.: 33624012