img Leseprobe Leseprobe

Honor and Slavery

Lies, Duels, Noses, Masks, Dressing as a Woman, Gifts, Strangers, Humanitarianism, Death, Slave Rebellions, the Proslavery Argument, Baseball, Hunting, and Gambling in the Old South

Kenneth S. Greenberg

EPUB
ca. 52,99
Amazon iTunes Thalia.de Weltbild.de Hugendubel Bücher.de ebook.de kobo Osiander Google Books Barnes&Noble bol.com Legimi yourbook.shop Kulturkaufhaus ebooks-center.de
* Affiliatelinks/Werbelinks
Hinweis: Affiliatelinks/Werbelinks
Links auf reinlesen.de sind sogenannte Affiliate-Links. Wenn du auf so einen Affiliate-Link klickst und über diesen Link einkaufst, bekommt reinlesen.de von dem betreffenden Online-Shop oder Anbieter eine Provision. Für dich verändert sich der Preis nicht.

Princeton University Press img Link Publisher

Sachbuch / 20. Jahrhundert (bis 1945)

Beschreibung

The "honorable men" who ruled the Old South had a language all their own, one comprised of many apparently outlandish features yet revealing much about the lives of masters and the nature of slavery. When we examine Jefferson Davis's explanation as to why he was wearing women's clothing when caught by Union soldiers, or when we consider the story of Virginian statesman John Randolph, who stood on his doorstep declaring to an unwanted dinner guest that he was "not at home," we see that conveying empirical truths was not the goal of their speech. Kenneth Greenberg so skillfully demonstrates, the language of honor embraced a complex system of phrases, gestures, and behaviors that centered on deep-rooted values: asserting authority and maintaining respect. How these values were encoded in such acts as nose-pulling, outright lying, dueling, and gift-giving is a matter that Greenberg takes up in a fascinating and original way.


The author looks at a range of situations when the words and gestures of honor came into play, and he re-creates the contexts and associations that once made them comprehensible. We understand, for example, the insult a navy lieutenant leveled at President Andrew Jackson when he pulls his nose, once we understand how a gentleman valued his face, especially his nose, as the symbol of his public image. Greenberg probes the lieutenant's motivations by explaining what it meant to perceive oneself as dishonored and how such a perception seemed comparable to being treated as a slave. When John Randolph lavished gifts on his friends and enemies as he calmly faced the prospect of death in a duel with Secretary of State Henry Clay, his generosity had a paternalistic meaning echoed by the master-slave relationship and reflected in the pro-slavery argument. These acts, together with the way a gentleman chose to lend money, drink with strangers, go hunting, and die, all formed a language of control, a vision of what it meant to live as a courageous free man. In reconstructing the language of honor in the Old South, Greenberg reconstructs the world.

Weitere Titel in dieser Kategorie
Cover Garden of Ruins
J. Matthew Ward
Cover Day of Reckoning
Mike Wendling
Cover Whistling Dixie
Jonathan Bartho
Cover Zouave Theaters
Thomas J. Brown
Cover It Took Courage
Christopher P. Lehman
Cover Family War Stories
Keith P. Wilson
Cover Family War Stories
Keith P. Wilson
Cover Cold War Country
Joseph M. Thompson
Cover Only a Few Blocks to Cuba
Mauricio Fernando Castro

Kundenbewertungen

Schlagwörter

Mutilation, The Word of a Gentleman, Humiliation, Shirt, William Wells Brown, Abolitionism, Catherine Clinton, Trickster, Correspondent, Culture of the Southern United States, Anonymity, Varina Davis, Hanging, J. Marion Sims, Editorial, P. T. Barnum, In Death, Clothing, Laborer, Generosity, Pseudonym, Edmund Ruffin, Payment, Newspaper, Reputation, W. E. B. Du Bois, Coffin, Institution, Abner Doubleday, Superiority (short story), Slave rebellion, Competition, Edward L. Ayers, Suffolk University, The Gambler (novel), Publication, Affair, Illustration, Burial, Obedience (human behavior), Writing, Mr., Henry Bibb, Practical joke, Wealth, Old South, Neglect, Murder, African Americans, Freedman, Manumission, Slavery, Novelist, Fox hunting, White people, Laughter, Hatred, White Southerners, Lynching, Theft, Worlds of Honor, James Henry Hammond, His Family, Paternalism, Fraud, Nat Turner, Explanation, Slavery in the United States, Culture of honor (Southern United States), The Other Hand