Carl N. Degler

Drift Toward Dissolution: The Virginia Slavery Debate of 1831—1832. By Alison Goodyear Freehling. Louisiana. $32.50. It has long been a kind of embarrassment to Americans that their great free republic was once the largest slave society in the m [...]

The Rise and Fall of Black Slavery. By C. Duncan Rice. Harper and Row. $15.00 OVER the last ten years the subject of slavery has fairly dominated the field of American history; during the last eight years alone at least five major book awards hav [...]

Been in the Storm So Long. By Leon F. Litwack. Knopf. $20.00. With 1980, the long, intense, yet fruitful historical debate over the nature of slavery comes of age. It was just 21 years ago that Stanley Elkins published his slim book Slavery, which [...]

Occupationally, historians cannot leave any period of the past alone. They must rewrite history because their primary concern is to interpret it and to discern its meaning for the present. Since the present is constantly changing, so must the mean [...]