The mind of the master class : history and faith in the Southern slaveholders' worldview / Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, Eugene D. Genovese.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Fox-Genovese, Elizabeth, 1941-2007, author.

Genovese, Eugene D., 1930-2012, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Slaveholders--Southern States--Social life and customs.

Slaveholders.

Slaveholders--Religious life--Southern States.

Slaveholders--Southern States--Intellectual life.

Slavery--Southern States--Justification.

Slavery.

Slavery--Moral and ethical aspects--Southern States--History.

Slavery--Political aspects--Southern States--History.

Southern States--Social life and customs--1775-1865.

Southern States.

Southern States--Religious life and customs.

Southern States--Intellectual life.

Southern States--History--Philosophy.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xiii, 828 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2005.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

The Mind of the Master Class tells of America's greatest historical tragedy. It presents the slaveholders as men and women, a great many of whom were intelligent, honorable, and pious. It asks how people who were admirable in so many ways could have presided over a social system that proved itself an enormity and inflicted horrors on their slaves. The South had formidable proslavery intellectuals who participated fully in transatlantic debates and boldly challenged an ascendant capitalist ('free-labor') society. Blending classical and Christian traditions, they forged a moral and political philosophy designed to sustain conservative principles in history, political economy, social theory, and theology, while translating them into political action. Even those who judge their way of life most harshly have much to learn from their probing moral and political reflections on their times - and ours - beginning with the virtues and failings of their own society and culture.

Contents:

Cover; Half-title; Title; Copyright; Dedication; Contents; Preface; Abbreviations; Prologue; PART ONE CRADLED IN THE STORMS OF REVOLUTION; 1 "That Terrible Tragedy"; 2 The Age of Revolution through Slaveholding Eyes; 3 "The Purest Sons of Freedom"; Entr'acte; PART TWO THE INESCAPABLE PAST; 4 History as Moral and Political Instruction; 5 The Slaveholders' Quest for a History of the Common People; 6 World History and the Politics of Slavery; 7 History as the Story of Freedom; PART THREE ANCIENT LEGACIES, MEDIEVAL SENSIBILITY, MODERN MEN; 8 In the Shadow of Antiquity

9 Coming to Terms with the Middle Ages10 The Chivalry; 11 Chivalric Slave Masters; 12 Chivalric Politics; PART FOUR A CHRISTIAN PEOPLE DEFEND THE FAITH; 13 A Christian People; 14 Unity and Diversity among the Faithful; 15 War over the Good Book; 16 Slavery; 17 The Holy Spirit in the Word of God; 18 Jerusalem and Athens - Against Paris; 19 Serpent in the Garden; 20 Theopolitics; Coda; PART FIVE AT THE RUBICON; 21 Between Individualism and Corporatism; 22 Past and Future Caesars; Epilogue; Supplementary References; Index

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).

Includes bibliographical references (p. 719-792) and index.

ISBN:

1-139-93123-7

1-107-15367-0

1-281-10860-X

9786611108601

0-511-61480-2

0-511-34493-7

0-511-34457-0

0-511-34418-X

0-511-56810-X

0-511-34527-5

OCLC:

185082149