First published in 1974; Fogel and Engerman's groundbreaking book reexamined the economic foundations of American slavery; marking "the start of a new period of slavery scholarship and some searching revisions of a national tradition" (C. Vann Woodward; New York Review of Books). In an Afterword added in 1989; the authors assess their findings in the light of recent scholarship and debate.
#56088 in Books NORTON 2017-03-21 2017-03-21Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 9.50 x 1.40 x 6.50l; .0 #File Name: 0393249387384 pagesNORTON
Review
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. A little drawn out and slow goingBy Ian BA little drawn out and slow going for my liking. Quite repetitive and doesn't flow particularly well; but dos give a good insight to the man; his family and the Navy establishment of the time.2 of 3 people found the following review helpful. Recommended; but could be tightened up.By NorbertA good read and certainly a must-read for anyone interested in the latest on the Franklin Expedition and the discoveries related to its fate.The book does have its weaknesses. Lively and well-written when discussing Franklin and then Lady Franklin's efforts to have him first rescued and then at least found; it does lose focus in the middle sections. Long rambling chapters tell you many mildly interesting things about Inuit life and Canadian policy which are not even remotely connected to the Franklin story; at times the book reads like a National Geographic article on contemporary Arctic Canada.But overall; the scholarship is solid; and once he gets back to the remnants of the expedition; the author's involvement with the topic makes for an authoritative account.16 of 16 people found the following review helpful. Only the Actual Franklin Expedition Was as Long a SlogBy Wine LoverI enjoy reading about the Franklin Expedition; and with so much new news out since 2014 -16; and this book appearing just this year in 2017; I figured this would contain the latest information. In truth I was a bit suspicious that the author is a 'Winner of the Pulitzer Prize'; which usually means 'this book is torturously overwritten'; and sure enough; it was. Way too much unrelated detail; so much so that the account of the actual find of the Franklin ships finally appears to the exhausted reader on page 318 (of 346 pages of text); almost as an afterthought; and concludes only a few pages later. (Not to mention that there are only two photos of the finds -- a ship's bell and a ship's wheel -- nothing of any other artifacts or of the wrecks or underwater views.) To make up for the lack of visual leavening; we are lathered up with useless prose details: a helicopter (quite incidental to the story; by the way) is a 'red-and-white Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm Bo 105 ... a light-duty German helicopter developed in the 1970s'; a seaman is a 'quick-witted wisecracker with a gray goatee ... he could be mistaken for an unusually tall elf'; and the elf-seaman's grandfather (no less) 'specialized in buffing furniture to a mirror sheen in the art of French polish' and 'once scolded the future Queen Elizabeth II'. A few pictures really would be worth a few thousand words. And; in a quaint but somewhat inexplicably tone-deaf choice; Watson insists on referring to 'The Arctic' in the feminine; e.g.; 'That was the plan. The Arctic; as she usually does; decided otherwise.' Although the book was a disappointment; both from the lack of useful detail (amid the profusion of useless ones) and from plodding; meandering prose that can be likened only to the trail of the doomed Franklin sailors themselves; the book's strong suit is the near-real-time recounting of the various bureaucratic obstacles put up by British and (more recently) Canadian officialdom to blunt the progress of what turned out to be a fairly easy find of two large and largely intact vessels sitting upright in less than 100 feet of water -- one of which; the 'Terror'; was found in 'Terror Bay'; where one might expect someone could have looked previously.
