Fatal self-deception : slaveholding paternalism in the Old South / / Eugene D. Genovese, Elizabeth Fox-Genovese [[electronic resource]]

• Record Nr.: UNINA9910457636303321
• Autore: Genovese Eugene D. <1930-2012, >
• Pubbl/distr/stampa: Cambridge : , : Cambridge University Press, , 2011
• ISBN: 1-139-15304-8; 1-107-22231-1; 1-283-34115-8; 9786613341150; 1-139-16060-5; 0-511-99475-3; 1-139-16160-1; 1-139-15603-9; 1-139-15779-5; 1-139-15955-0
• Descrizione fisica: 1 online resource (xvii, 232 pages) : digital, PDF file(s)
• Disciplina: 306.3/620975
• Soggetti: Slavery - Southern States - History - 19th century; Plantation owners - Southern States - History - 19th century; Paternalism - Southern States - History - 19th century; Slaves - Southern States - Social conditions - 19th century; Plantation workers - Southern States - History - 19th century; White people - Southern States - Social conditions - 19th century
• Lingua di pubblicazione: Inglese
• Formato: Materiale a stampa
• Livello bibliografico: Monografia
• Note generali: Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).
• Nota di bibliografia: Includes bibliographical references and index.
• Nota di contenuto: Machine generated contents note: 1. 'Boisterous passions'; 2. The complete household; 3. Strangers within the gates; 4. Loyal and loving slaves; 5. The blacks' best and most faithful friend; 6. Guardians of a helpless race; 7. Devotion unto death.
• Sommario/riassunto: Slaveholders were preoccupied with presenting slavery as a benign, paternalistic institution in which the planter took care of his family and slaves were content with their fate. In this book, Eugene D. Genovese ; and Elizabeth Fox-Genovese discuss how slaveholders perpetuated and rationalized this romanticized version of life on the plantation. Slaveholders' paternalism had little to do with ostensible benevolence, kindness and good cheer. It grew out of the necessity to discipline and morally justify a system of exploitation. At the same time, this book also advocates the examination of masters' relations with white plantation laborers and servants - a largely unstudied subject. Southerners drew on the work of British and European socialists to conclude that all labor, white and black, suffered de facto slavery, and they championed the South's 'Christian slavery' as the most humane and compassionate of social systems, ancient and modern.