Liberty and Slavery: Southern Politics to 1860

by William J. Cooper Jr.

Book Overview

Explores the South's paradoxical devotion to liberty and the practice of slavery

The recipient of high praise--and considerable debate for its provocative thesis--William J. Cooper, Jr.'s sweeping survey of antebellum southern politics returns to print for classroom and general use with this new paperback volume. In Liberty and Slavery Cooper contends that southerners defined their notions of liberty in terms of its opposite--slavery...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1570033870
• ISBN13: 9781570033872
• Release Date: October 2000
• Publisher: University of South Carolina Press
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 0.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Not a page turner, but interesting nonetheless

For content, this book deserves 5 stars, but I gave it 4 simply because it is by no means a page-turner. That being said, if you are interested in the antebellum South or political history, this is probably required reading. Cooper, who also wrote an excellent bio of Jefferson Davis, posits a very clear thesis: liberty and slavery in Southern politics were always intertwined. Southerners were staunch believers in liberty and a major part of that liberty was the ability to keep slaves. Cooper uses this as his thesis and spends 285 pages proving it. To my mind, he proves his point. And while this may seem like it would make the book redundant, that does not happen, but what we do find is that the Southern ideas of liberty (and their support of slavery) is the guiding light Southern politicians follow.