Product Description

First published in 1974, this reissue examines the economic foundations of American slavery in the light of recent scholarship and debate.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #188024 in Books
• Published on: 1995-03-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 336 pages

Customer Reviews

Not to be taken seriously.
This book is useful mostly as an example of how not to approach history. Fogel and Engerman used data based on slaveholders' records to conclude that slaves were treated well in the old South. They counted, for example, the exact number of beatings that an average slave would experience in year and concluded that it was only a few, without considering the impact of witnessing beatings of one fellow slaves, many of whom were family members or close friends. They counted the calories consumed by slaves but ignored data like actual caloric expenditures of slaves (which rendered their intake barely sufficient) and infant mortality (very high). This book serves mainly to reinforce one's prejudices and should not be read without also looking at other works in the field.

Time on the Cross shatters myths about slavery in America
This is one of the best books I've ever read on American negro slavery. What makes it a valuable edition to the academic literature is that the authors did not go into this with any ideological axes to grind. Indeed, both are political liberals who thoroughly deprecate the institution of slavery as a social and moral evil. They simply wanted to attain a better understanding of the actual economics of slavery in the Old South by analyzing the Plantation Books (i.e. the financial logs of Southern planters) and other relevant statistical resources so as to be able to accurately assess what slavery was like and how it affected the slave, the master and Southern society as a whole.

Much to their surprise, the authors concluded that slavery, as it was, bore little resemblance to the fictional, fever-swamp, nonsense that is peddled by the NAACP, the liberal media, Steven Spielberg, Oprah Winfrey and left-wing academics. They found that slaves had a better diet and better housing conditions than their wage-slave, immigrant counterparts in the North. They also found that slave families were rarely broken up and that miscagenation between masters and slaves was exceeedingly rare -- indeed, almost nonexistant. They also found that many slaves earned substantial incomes - a fact that surprises many people who believe that slaves did not earn money for their labour. I could go on and on but that would give away the book and ruin the joy of reading a text that absolutely blows away virtually all the "conventional wisdom" you've ever heard repeated about slavery in the Old South.

Anyone who really wants to learn the truth about slavery owes it to themselves to buy and read this book.

Excellent in destroying the myth of the oppressed slaves
This is an excellent econometric study of the institution of Southern slavery, showing it to be relatively benign in the South (whereas in other countries it could be hideously oppressive). One book that would be interesting to read in conjunction with this is "The South Was Right!" by James Ronald Kennedy and Walter Donald Kennedy which also lays to rest the myth that the American Civil War was fought over the slavery issue,actually the pretext for war. The Kennedys suggest partly an economic motive in that the North wanted to retain the South as "milch cow" to be milked for tariffs. They imply an underlying battle between Northern Federalism and Southern States' Rights, and insist that the War should be called the War for Southern Independence.