In this, the re-titled second edition of Society and Culture in the Slave South, J. William Harris selects the most recent and original scholarship in the field of the antebellum South published since 1992, when the first edition appeared. The present volume illustrates both the continuities and new developments in antebellum Southern history, starting from the work of Eugene Genovese and Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, and moving into work that challenges their traditional reading of the slave South as a "paternalist" society. The collection also features an introduction to the historiography of the slave South, and a "Guide to Further Reading."
Biography
J. William Harris
"J. William Harris' The Old South: New Studies of Society and Culture brings together an impressive array of diverse social and cultural history of the pre-Civil war South as written by some of the most gifted scholars among the current generation of southern historians. It is broadly representative of much of the best work done over the past fifteen years. It successfully defines the cutting edge of southern social and cultural history for all who care to know."
— Lacy Ford, author of A Companion to the Civil War and Reconstruction
"With essays about plantation owners and slaves, labor and property, and many forms of politics, this collection presents the easiest way to encounter the most exciting recent scholarship on the antebellum South."
— Ted Ownby, author of American Dreams in Mississippi: Consumers, Poverty, and Culture, 1830-1998
"In this revised collection of essays, J. William Harris has provided teachers of southern history with an invaluable teaching tool that incorporates the newest and most exciting approaches to the social and cultural history of the Old South such as gender relations and political culture."
— Mitchell Snay, author of Fenians, Freedmen, and Southern Whites: Race and Nationality in the Era of Reconstruction
'This gives a really good platform for dissertation reserach and, in my opinion, is an excellent read in its own right' – Richard Toley, History Teaching Review
