librarianonparade's review against another edition
3.0
This is a book of two halves, and not just in the most obvious sense. It's an interesting look at the twin concepts of family and community in the pre-Civil War slave South, focusing on Loudoun County in Virginia, looking at the issues not just across race lines but across gender and class as well, and how those varied combinations of gender and class had the potential to create similarities as well as divisions across the race line.
It focuses most heavily on the white planter class, and this is where the book of two halves aspect comes in - because where it focuses on rich white Southerners it draws heavily on written and oral testimony, documentary material in the form of letters, diaries, publications, newspaper articles, where it serves to bring the issues into focus through the words of the participants. The sections focuses on the 'middling' and poor white classes are much less thorough, for the same reason as the latter half of the book, dealing with slaves and free blacks, which relies much more on statistics, census returns, auction records and wills, and this is sadly where the narrative loses pace and the individuals involved lose clarity.
It was an interesting read, but I have to see I felt there was little new here. That rich white male Southerners were at the top of the heap and black female slaves and free blacks at the bottom is hardly a surprise. That whites tended to go in for nuclear families and slave and free blacks families relied on extended kin networks...again, not a surprise. Focusing on one specific county narrows the focus and enables the reader to trace patterns across generations in one place and often through one family, and that certainly lends a certain immediacy to the narrative. But as I said, this isn't ground-breaking scholarship and anyone halfway familiar with the antebellum South will discover little new here.
It focuses most heavily on the white planter class, and this is where the book of two halves aspect comes in - because where it focuses on rich white Southerners it draws heavily on written and oral testimony, documentary material in the form of letters, diaries, publications, newspaper articles, where it serves to bring the issues into focus through the words of the participants. The sections focuses on the 'middling' and poor white classes are much less thorough, for the same reason as the latter half of the book, dealing with slaves and free blacks, which relies much more on statistics, census returns, auction records and wills, and this is sadly where the narrative loses pace and the individuals involved lose clarity.
It was an interesting read, but I have to see I felt there was little new here. That rich white male Southerners were at the top of the heap and black female slaves and free blacks at the bottom is hardly a surprise. That whites tended to go in for nuclear families and slave and free blacks families relied on extended kin networks...again, not a surprise. Focusing on one specific county narrows the focus and enables the reader to trace patterns across generations in one place and often through one family, and that certainly lends a certain immediacy to the narrative. But as I said, this isn't ground-breaking scholarship and anyone halfway familiar with the antebellum South will discover little new here.
librarianonparade's review
3.0
This is a book of two halves, and not just in the most obvious sense. It's an interesting look at the twin concepts of family and community in the pre-Civil War slave South, focusing on Loudoun County in Virginia, looking at the issues not just across race lines but across gender and class as well, and how those varied combinations of gender and class had the potential to create similarities as well as divisions across the race line.
It focuses most heavily on the white planter class, and this is where the book of two halves aspect comes in - because where it focuses on rich white Southerners it draws heavily on written and oral testimony, documentary material in the form of letters, diaries, publications, newspaper articles, where it serves to bring the issues into focus through the words of the participants. The sections focuses on the 'middling' and poor white classes are much less thorough, for the same reason as the latter half of the book, dealing with slaves and free blacks, which relies much more on statistics, census returns, auction records and wills, and this is sadly where the narrative loses pace and the individuals involved lose clarity.
It was an interesting read, but I have to see I felt there was little new here. That rich white male Southerners were at the top of the heap and black female slaves and free blacks at the bottom is hardly a surprise. That whites tended to go in for nuclear families and slave and free blacks families relied on extended kin networks...again, not a surprise. Focusing on one specific county narrows the focus and enables the reader to trace patterns across generations in one place and often through one family, and that certainly lends a certain immediacy to the narrative. But as I said, this isn't ground-breaking scholarship and anyone halfway familiar with the antebellum South will discover little new here.
It focuses most heavily on the white planter class, and this is where the book of two halves aspect comes in - because where it focuses on rich white Southerners it draws heavily on written and oral testimony, documentary material in the form of letters, diaries, publications, newspaper articles, where it serves to bring the issues into focus through the words of the participants. The sections focuses on the 'middling' and poor white classes are much less thorough, for the same reason as the latter half of the book, dealing with slaves and free blacks, which relies much more on statistics, census returns, auction records and wills, and this is sadly where the narrative loses pace and the individuals involved lose clarity.
It was an interesting read, but I have to see I felt there was little new here. That rich white male Southerners were at the top of the heap and black female slaves and free blacks at the bottom is hardly a surprise. That whites tended to go in for nuclear families and slave and free blacks families relied on extended kin networks...again, not a surprise. Focusing on one specific county narrows the focus and enables the reader to trace patterns across generations in one place and often through one family, and that certainly lends a certain immediacy to the narrative. But as I said, this isn't ground-breaking scholarship and anyone halfway familiar with the antebellum South will discover little new here.
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