Re: Debating slavery

["Charles Brown" <CharlesB@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>>> lnp3@xxxxxxxxx 10/18/00 05:48PM >>>



Mark M. Smith. _Debating Slavery: Economy and Society in the Antebellum
American South_. New Studies in Economic and Social History. Cambridge,
England and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998. xii + 117 pp.
Illustrations, bibliographical references, and index. $39.95 (cloth), ISBN
0-521-57158-8.

Reviewed for H-South by Eric Tscheschlok <tscheeg@xxxxxxxxxx>, Department
of History, Auburn University

Interpreting the Slave South

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Smith divides the text into seven chapters, sandwiched between a thoughtful
preface and an outstanding, comprehensive bibliography. The first chapter
provides a basic introduction to the volume by sketching the predominant
themes in the history and historiography of slave South from colonial times
to emancipation. Here Smith advances, by implication at least, the
questionable assertion that all major works of this genre fall into two
dogmatic schools. One, headed by Eugene Genovese, Elizabeth Fox-Genovese,
and Raimondo Luraghi, sees southern society as anti-commercial,
precapitalist, and economically inefficient. The other, represented mainly
by Robert Fogel, Stanley Engerman, and James Oakes, contends that the
plantation South was (much like the industrializing North) profit-driven,
market-oriented, and economically efficient.

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(((((((((((

CB: This reviewer certainly gets it right when he questions the implication 
that all
major works in this genre fall into two schools , one headed by Genoveses and 
friend,
the other headed by Fogel and Engerman.


Seems to be neo-Invisiblemanism, going here, when the names of Dubois and 
Aptheker are
left out.  In his essay "Heavenly Days in Dixie:Or, the Time of Their Lives"  ( 
In the
volume of his essays entitled _Racism, Imperialism and Peace_; Marxist 
Educational
Publications, Minneapolis 1987). Aptheker positively excoriates Fogel and 
Engerman for
their apologia for Southern slavery in _Time on the Cross: The Economics of 
American
Negro Slavery_.   Aptheker suggest that the title of his essay would be a 
better name
for their book. I'll type out excerpts in future posts.

Aptheker's opinion of Genovese is similar, though I don't have an essay by 
Aptheker at
hand right now. We just went over Genovese insanity on LBO-Talk, with 
crossposting
here.

What we have here is historical ( academic and actual) deja vu. The heroics of 
Dubois
and Aptheker in fighting the racist theses on slavery of the historical 
profession are
being buried. Perhaps Manning Marable and Robin Kelley can help defeat these
neo-Confederates.

Lou, why don't you ask Professor Smith if he has heard of Dubois and Aptheker ?

Charles Brown