The history of slavery in early America is a history of suicide. On ships crossing the Atlantic; enslaved men and women refused to eat or leaped into the ocean. They strangled or hanged themselves. They tore open their own throats. In America; they jumped into rivers or out of windows; or even ran into burning buildings. Faced with the reality of enslavement; countless Africans chose death instead. In The Power to Die; Terri L. Snyder excavates the history of slave suicide; returning it to its central place in early American history. How did people—traders; plantation owners; and; most importantly; enslaved men and women themselves—view and understand these deaths; and how did they affect understandings of the institution of slavery then and now? Snyder draws on ships’ logs; surgeons' journals; judicial and legislative records; newspaper accounts; abolitionist propaganda and slave narratives; and many other sources to build a grim picture of slavery’s toll and detail the ways in which suicide exposed the contradictions of slavery; serving as a powerful indictment that resonated throughout the Anglo-Atlantic world and continues to speak to historians today.
#2804434 in Books Robinson Michael F 2014-10-24 2006-07-01Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 9.00 x .70 x 6.00l; .0 #File Name: 022621415X200 pagesThe Coldest Crucible Arctic Exploration and American Culture
Review
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful. Good Analysis of the Ice in the American ImaginationBy Roger D. LauniusMichael F. Robinson's "The Coldest Crucible: Arctic Exploration and American Culture" focuses on the public perception of American Arctic exploration to illuminate developments in the political and cultural history of the United States between 1850 and 1909. He approaches the Arctic as "a faraway stage on which explorers played out dramas that were unfolding very close to home" (p. 3). He unpacks the political and cultural demarcations of American culture and uses the polar explorers as a means of illuminating U.S. society and culture. Most important; Robinson finds that the explorers offered an unequivocal statement of American exceptionalism that all could embrace. In the end; he asserts that Americans used the Arctic as a surrogate for other controversies and dramas played out far from the snow-covered region.There is much in "The Coldest Crucible" to admire. Robinson makes a succinct; well-structured argument; using Arctic exploration as a stage on which to dramatize what he thinks are the core elements of the American nation in the nineteenth century. Robinson is at his best when he documents the manner in which the Arctic served as a unifying theme in a nation divided by slavery in the 1840s and 1850s. At a critical level stories of the search for Sir John Franklin's lost expedition diverted the public from the more serious issues taking place on the national stage. I immediately thought of the many diversions of minor stories in the media in the 2002-2003 time period rather than focusing on the huge story of the nation's politicos lumbering toward what became the quagmire of Iraq.But diversions were no less useful in the post-Civil War era; but Robinson tends to interpret Arctic exploration differently in that era. He seems to emphasize its role more as an expression of anxiety about a loss of masculinity present in the rise of urban America. But I find his unifying theme valid there as well; and would suggest that the race of Robert Peary and Frederick Cook to the North Pole was just as attractive a feature of Americanism writ large as the pre-Civil War efforts in the Arctic.While I quibble with the details of his thesis; Robinson's study is superb. It effectively demonstrates his central contention that the exploration of the Arctic was effectively invoked by observers to further ends on the continental American landscape far removed from the ice. His innovative approach will have to be dealt with in the historiography hereafter; and no one will be able to deny that Robinson has made his case that our culture gave rise to the polar expeditions undertaken by Americans in the nineteenth century. As he demonstrated; the quest for the Arctic for Americans represented a unique synergy between culture and exploration; each one playing off the other.
