The Political Economy of Slavery: Studies in the Economy and Society of the Slave South

This classic study of antebellum Southern society demonstrates how slavery was the bedrock of the region's social order and cultural identity.

In The Political Economy of Slavery, Eugene Genovese argues that slavery gave the South a distinct class structure, political community, economy, ideology, and a set of psychological patterns. As a result, the South grew away from the rest of the nation and became increasingly unstable during the nineteenth century. The difficulties it faced-economic...