In this engaging book; David Brion Davis offers an illuminating perspective on American slavery. Starting with a long view across the temporal and spatial boundaries of world slavery; he traces continuities from the ancient world to the era of exploration; with its expanding markets and rise in consumption of such products as sugar; tobacco; spices; and chocolate; to the conditions of the New World settlement that gave rise to a dependence on the forced labor of millions of African slaves. With the American Revolution; slavery crossed another kind of boundary; in a psychological inversion that placed black slaves outside the dream of liberty and equality--and turned them into the Great American Problem. Davis then delves into a single year; 1819; to explain how an explosive conflict over the expansion and legitimacy of slavery; together with reinterpretations of the Bible and the Constitution; pointed toward revolutionary changes in American culture. Finally; he widens the angle again; in a regional perspective; to discuss the movement to colonize blacks outside the United States; the African-American impact on abolitionism; and the South's response to slave emancipation in the British Caribbean; which led to attempts to morally vindicate slavery and export it into future American states. Challenging the boundaries of slavery ultimately brought on the Civil War and the unexpected; immediate emancipation of slaves long before it could have been achieved in any other way. This imaginative and fascinating book puts slavery into a brilliant new light and underscores anew the desperate human tragedy lying at the very heart of the American story.
#1157653 in Books Simon n Schuster 1994-04-26 1994-04-26Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 8.94 x 1.60 x 5.75l; 1.53 #File Name: 0671882376544 pagesISBN13: 9780671882372Condition: NewNotes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
Review
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. This thoughtful; well documented and (3rd person) personal accounting ...By Philip L AndersonThis thoughtful; well documented and (3rd person) personal accounting of the initial settling of North America is a forgotten part of our cultural foundation which seems to have been ignored by most high school and college history books.14 of 14 people found the following review helpful. One of the best recent North American colonial histories.By David J. MaschekTed Morgan's "Wilderness at Dawn" is one of the best of a crop of North American colonial histories published since 1990. Rather than a comprehensive history; it is a series of incidents that add up to a very readable whole. Morgan begins with pre-Columbian history and goes on to relate the experiences of the Spanish; French; Dutch; and various flavors of English colonies. One of my favorite stories is how the godly Pilgrims found themselves neighbors to a riotous colony led by one Thomas Morton. Before Miles Standish put their rivals out of business; Morton's drunken crew traded guns and booze to the Indians in exchange for beaver pelts and sexual favors. Anyone who believes history is boring has not read Ted Morgan's and other recent works about the American colonies. The last section of this book addresses the problems of post-Revolutionary War colonization; including chapters about the appalling dangers of trans-Appalachian settlement and about how the Old Northwest was surveyed.0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Five StarsBy Dorothy Lumpkin KellyNot your grammar school history book. Stunning and noteworthy.
