Synopses & Reviews
This pathbreaking interpretation of the slaveholding South begins with the insight that slavery and freedom were not mutually exclusive but were intertwined in every dimension of life in the South. James Oakes traces the implications of this insight for relations between masters and slaves, slaveholders and non-slaveholders, and for the rise of a racist ideology.
Review
"Intriguing.... Oakes goes where few historians have gone before.... He has produced a solidly researched, provocative account of the Old South that will make its readers think and rethink." Newsday
Synopsis
"The most valuable and stimulating general interpretation of the Old South to appear in recent years."--George M. Fredrickson
About the Author
James Oakes is a Distinguished Professor of History and Graduate School Humanities Professor at the City University of New York Graduate Center. He is the author of several acclaimed works on the South and the Civil War, including The Radical and the Republican: Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, and the Triumph of Antislavery Politics, winner of the Lincoln Prize. He and his family live in New York City.