Strategies for Survival conveys the experience of bondage through former enslaved people's own words. The source of this landmark content is a remarkable series of interviews conducted in Virginia in 1937 by WPA workers. Most of the interviewers were themselves Black; as a result, the subjects spoke with exceptional candor. William Dusinberre explores these interviews to re-create for the modern reader enslaved people's strategies for survival within the severe constrictions imposed by bondage. Religion and escape were the chief ways of coping with the indignity of family disruption, racism, and the harsh realities of slavery. We see great creativity and variety in such responses to oppression, but we are also forced to acknowledge the limits of enslaved people's resistance and agency.
Rezensionen / Stimmen
With Strategies for Survival William Dusinberre solidifies his reputation as one of our finest historians of southern slavery. His unusually sensitive reading of interviews with Virginia's ex-slaves returns us to basic questions, but offers startling fresh answers. Like his classic study of slavery on the rice plantations, Strategies for Survival will quickly become a must-read for all students of antebellum American history." -James Oakes, author of Slavery and Freedom: An Interpretation of the Old South"This remarkable study of antebellum Virginia slavery displays all the qualities we have come to expect from William Dusinberre- impeccable research, creative questioning, elegant writing, and persuasive interpretations. This is a major contribution from a major historian." -Charles Joyner, author of Down By the Riverside: A South Carolina Slave Community
Reihe
Sprache
Verlagsort
Produkt-Hinweis
Maße
Höhe: 229 mm
Breite: 152 mm
Dicke: 16 mm
Gewicht
ISBN-13
978-0-8139-4726-6 (9780813947266)
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Schweitzer Klassifikation
William Dusinberre, Reader in History, Emeritus, at the University of Warwick in England, is the author of Slavemaster President: The Double Career of James Polk, Henry Adams: The Myth of Failure (Virginia) and the award-winning Them Dark Days: Slavery in the American Rice Swamps.
