In the image of God : religion, moral values, and our heritage of slavery / David Brion Davis.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Davis, David Brion.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Slavery.

Slavery--United States.

United States.

Slavery--Book reviews.

Slave trade.

Slavery and Judaism.

Slavery and Islam.

Religion and culture.

Genre:

Book reviews.

Reviews.

Physical Description:

viii, 392 pages ; 25 cm

Place of Publication:

New Haven : Yale University Press, [2001]

Summary:

In this broad-ranging book, the preeminent authority on the history of slavery meditates on the orgins, experience, and legacy of this "peculiar institution." David Brion Davis begins with a substantial and highly personal introduction in which he discusses some of the major ideas and individuals that have shaped his approach to history. He then presents a series of interlocking essays that cover topics including slave resistance, the historical construction of race, and the connections between the abolitionist movement and the struggle for women's rights. The book also includes essays on such major figures as Reinhold Niebuhr and Martin Luther King, Jr., as well as appreciations of two of the finest historians of the twentieth century: C. Vann Woodward and Eugene D. Genovese. Gathered together for the first time, these essays present the major intellectual, historical, and moral issues essential to the study of New World slavery and its devastating legacy.

Contents:

Part I From Religion to Slavery

1 Reinhold Niebuhr: An American Jeremiah 19

2 Martin Luther King, Jr. 29

3 Religion and American Culture 37

4 The Other Zion: American Jews and the Meritocratic Experiment 47

5 The Slave Trade and the Jews 63

6 Jews and Blacks in American 73

Part II Historians of Two Generations

7 The Rebel: C. Vann Woodward 95

8 A Tribute to Woodward 108

9 Southern Comfort: Eugene D. Genovese 110

Part III Origins

10 At the Heart of Slavery 123

11 Slaves in Islam 137

12 A Big Business 151

13 The Triumph of the Country 165

14 The Labyrinth of Slavery 178

15 The Significance of the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 189

16 The Benefit of Slavery 205

17 Capitalism, Abolitionism, and Hegemony 217

Part IV The Violence of Slavery as Experienced

18 The White World of Frederick Douglass 237

19 Life and Death in Slavery 248

20 The Ends of Slavery 260

21 White Wives and Slave Mothers 277

22 Terror in Mississippi 290

Part V From the Construction of Race to the American Dilemma and the Feminist Revolution

23 Constructing Race: A Reflection 307

24 The Culmination of Racial Polarities and Prejudice 323

25 The American Dilemma 343

26 The Other Revolution 359.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

0300088140

OCLC:

46822428