Becoming Free in the Cotton South by Susan Eva O'Donovan (English) Paperback Boo

Description: Becoming Free in the Cotton South by Susan Eva O'Donovan This book challenges our most basic ideas about slavery and freedom in America. Instead of seeing emancipation as the beginning or end of the story, ODonovan explores the perilous transition between these two conditions, offering a unique vision of the enormous changes and the profound continuities in black life before and after the Civil War. FORMAT Paperback LANGUAGE English CONDITION Brand New Publisher Description Becoming Free in the Cotton South challenges our most basic ideas about slavery and freedom in America. Instead of seeing emancipation as the beginning or the ending of the story, as most histories do, Susan Eva ODonovan explores the perilous transition between these two conditions, offering a unique vision of both the enormous changes and the profound continuities in black life before and after the Civil War. This boldly argued work focuses on a small place-the southwest corner of Georgia-in order to explicate a big question: how did black men and black womens experiences in slavery shape their lives in freedom? The reality of slaverys demise is harsh: in this land where cotton was king, the promise of Reconstruction passed quickly, even as radicalism crested and swept the rest of the South. Ultimately, the lives former slaves made for themselves were conditioned and often constrained by what they had endured in bondage. ODonovans significant scholarship does not diminish the heroic efforts of black Americans to make their world anew; rather, it offers troubling but necessary insight into the astounding challenges they faced. Becoming Free in the Cotton South is a moving and intimate narrative, drawing upon a multiplicity of sources and individual stories to provide new understanding of the forces that shaped both slavery and freedom, and of the generation of African Americans who tackled the passage that lay between. Notes Susan ODonovan details the major changes for the slave and free black population of Southwest Georgia in the years of settlement, of the Civil War, and of the economic and political adaptations to emancipation. Of particular importance are the different impacts these changes had upon black men and black women, and upon the relations between belief and behavior in slavery and then in freedom. -- Stanley L. Engerman, University of Rochester The seismic shifts set in motion by the emancipation reached into every corner of the American South. In exploring one small corner, Becoming Free reveals how the earthquake that accompanied freedoms arrival shifted gender relations in the household, field, and hustings and in the process changed much more. Susan ODonovans small story is a big story, an original one, and an important one. -- Ira Berlin, author of Many Thousands Gone and Generations of Captivity As an exposition of how land, labor, and gender structured a hard slavery and a hard emancipation as well, ODonovans analytical narrative is hard to beat. An exceptionally rich and textured study that never loses sight of the larger stakes. -- James C. Scott, Yale University With meticulous and probing scholarship, ODonovans work acutely demonstrates the tragic continuities between slavery and freedom in the American South. Her analysis of the intersection of ethno-racial, economic and gender domination immediately after slavery illuminates a crucial period in African American history and radically alters conventional scholarly interpretations of the development of the black family. This exquisitely accomplished and engagingly written work is surely one of the most important studies in African American and Southern histories to appear in years. -- Orlando Patterson, author of Rituals of Blood: Consequences of Slavery in Two American Centuries Author Biography Susan ODonovan is Associate Professor of History at the University of Memphis Review Susan ODonovan details the major changes for the slave and free black population of Southwest Georgia in the years of settlement, of the Civil War, and of the economic and political adaptations to emancipation. Of particular importance are the different impacts these changes had upon black men and black women, and upon the relations between belief and behavior in slavery and then in freedom. -- Stanley L. Engerman, University of RochesterThe seismic shifts set in motion by the emancipation reached into every corner of the American South. In exploring one small corner, Becoming Free reveals how the earthquake that accompanied freedoms arrival shifted gender relations in the household, field, and hustings and in the process changed much more. Susan ODonovans small story is a big story, an original one, and an important one. -- Ira Berlin, author of Many Thousands Gone and Generations of CaptivityAs an exposition of how land, labor, and gender structured a hard slavery and a hard emancipation as well, author>ODonovans analytical narrative is hard to beat. An exceptionally rich and textured study that never loses sight of the larger stakes. -- James C. Scott, Yale UniversityWith meticulous and probing scholarship, ODonovans work acutely demonstrates the tragic continuities between slavery and freedom in the American South. Her analysis of the intersection of ethno-racial, economic and gender domination immediately after slavery illuminates a crucial period in African American history and radically alters conventional scholarly interpretations of the development of the black family. This exquisitely accomplished and engagingly written work is surely one of the most important studies in African American and Southern histories to appear in years. -- Orlando Patterson, author of Rituals of Blood: Consequences of Slavery in Two American CenturiesODonovan presents an excellent overview of the lives of African Americans in southwestern Georgia from about 1820 through 1868. The work shows the development of the cotton economy in this unique region from its very beginning until the early stages of emancipation. However, the books strength is its treatment of the daily lives of African Americans. The impact of the planters initial migration to southwestern Georgia, the ways in which slaves negotiated almost every aspect of their lives with their masters, and the effect of the Civil War on the region are all well developed. ODonovan also shows the actual process of emancipation at work and how it affected black men, women, and children differently. Her work is especially strong in its treatment of women and discusses economics, social history, and politics equally well. ODonovan expands on the earlier works of Hahn, Bryant, and Berlin while acknowledging her debt to them. This work is extraordinarily well written, often allowing African Americans to speak for themselves. -- K. L. Gorman * Choice *This is a superb book… ODonovan has produced a crisp, concise, and well-written piece of scholarship… [She] has created her own unique deterministic model combining contingency, on the one hand, with the iron limitations of the past, on the other… Her argument is one of continuity, but an unstable continuity continuously challenged by the choices of individuals and the unforeseeable happenstance as various as the weather, war, or the Fourteenth Amendment. -- Martin J. Hardeman * H-Law *ODonovan thus offers an original and meticulously researched study of how sixty-two thousand slaves became free in southwestern Georgia, an area that remained untouched by the Civil War… ODonovans commitment to a specific swath of land in order to observe how slavery and freedom unfolded is by any account an important contribution to southern history… Her book is finely argued, elegantly written, and breathtakingly researched. -- Jim Downs * Journal of Southern History *In her pioneering history of Reconstruction in southwest Georgia, Susan Eva ODonovan reminds us that the men and women negotiating the first few years of freedom there operated within a framework established by their subregions particularly harsh history of slavery and war… Compelling reading and offer welcome glimpses into this crucial moment in history… This book deserves a thoughtful readership. -- Mark Roman Schultz * Journal of American History *A powerful, exemplary social history of workers that captures both their strivings for a more just world and the overwhelming force of race, gender, and capital on their lives… With unflinching and evocative prose, ODonovan has written a captivating and convincing history of the enormous struggles that black women and men engaged in before and after emancipation… Becoming Free in the Cotton South, in short, illustrates the immense and subtle upheavals, adjustments, and continuities that attended slaverys demise. Its compelling ideas and refreshing narrative deserve the widest audience possible. -- Moon-Ho Jung * Labor * Promotional Susan ODonovan details the major changes for the slave and free black population of Southwest Georgia in the years of settlement, of the Civil War, and of the economic and political adaptations to emancipation. Of particular importance are the different impacts these changes had upon black men and black women, and upon the relations between belief and behavior in slavery and then in freedom. -- Stanley L. Engerman, University of Rochester The seismic shifts set in motion by the emancipation reached into every corner of the American South. In exploring one small corner, Becoming Free reveals how the earthquake that accompanied freedoms arrival shifted gender relations in the household, field, and hustings and in the process changed much more. Susan ODonovans small story is a big story, an original one, and an important one. -- Ira Berlin, author of Many Thousands Gone and Generations of Captivity As an exposition of how land, labor, and gender structured a hard slavery and a hard emancipation as well, ODonovans analytical narrative is hard to beat. An exceptionally rich and textured study that never loses sight of the larger stakes. -- James C. Scott, Yale University With meticulous and probing scholarship, ODonovans work acutely demonstrates the tragic continuities between slavery and freedom in the American South. Her analysis of the intersection of ethno-racial, economic and gender domination immediately after slavery illuminates a crucial period in African American history and radically alters conventional scholarly interpretations of the development of the black family. This exquisitely accomplished and engagingly written work is surely one of the most important studies in African American and Southern histories to appear in years. -- Orlando Patterson, author of Rituals of Blood: Consequences of Slavery in Two American Centuries Review Quote With meticulous and probing scholarship, ODonovans work acutely demonstrates the tragic continuities between slavery and freedom in the American South. Her analysis of the intersection of ethno-racial, economic and gender domination immediately after slavery illuminates a crucial period in African American history and radically alters conventional scholarly interpretations of the development of the black family. This exquisitely accomplished and engagingly written work is surely one of the most important studies in African American and Southern histories to appear in years. Details ISBN0674045653 Author Susan Eva ODonovan Short Title BECOMING FREE IN THE COTTON SO Publisher Harvard University Press Language English ISBN-10 0674045653 ISBN-13 9780674045651 Media Book Format Paperback Year 2010 Imprint Harvard University Press Place of Publication Cambridge, Mass Country of Publication United States Illustrations 1 map UK Release Date 2010-04-10 Publication Date 2010-04-10 AU Release Date 2010-04-10 NZ Release Date 2010-04-10 US Release Date 2010-04-10 Pages 384 DEWEY 973.711409758 Audience Professional & Vocational We've got this At The Nile, if you're looking for it, we've got it. With fast shipping, low prices, friendly service and well over a million items - you're bound to find what you want, at a price you'll love! TheNile_Item_ID:26301154;

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