The Ruling Race
Nonfiction, History, Modern, 19th Century, Social & Cultural Studies, Social Science, Discrimination & Race Relations, Americas, United States, Civil War Period (1850-1877)
| Author: | James Oakes | ISBN: | 9780307828132 |
| Publisher: | Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group | Publication: | April 17, 2013 |
| Imprint: | Knopf | Language: | English |
| Author: | James Oakes |
| ISBN: | 9780307828132 |
| Publisher: | Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group |
| Publication: | April 17, 2013 |
| Imprint: | Knopf |
| Language: | English |
This pathbreaking social history of the slaveholding South marks a turn in our understanding of antebellum America and the coming of the Civil War. Oakes's bracing analysis breaks the myth that slaveholders were a paternalistic aristocracy dedicated to the values of honor, race, and section. Instead they emerge as having much in common with their entrepreneurial counterparts in the North: they were committed to free-market commercialism and political democracy for white males. The Civil War was not an inevitable conflict between civilizations on different paths but the crack-up of a single system, the result of people and events.
This pathbreaking social history of the slaveholding South marks a turn in our understanding of antebellum America and the coming of the Civil War. Oakes's bracing analysis breaks the myth that slaveholders were a paternalistic aristocracy dedicated to the values of honor, race, and section. Instead they emerge as having much in common with their entrepreneurial counterparts in the North: they were committed to free-market commercialism and political democracy for white males. The Civil War was not an inevitable conflict between civilizations on different paths but the crack-up of a single system, the result of people and events.
