NEW DIRECTIONS IN THE STUDY OF SLAVERY

Masters, Slaves, and Subjects: The Culture of Power in the South Carolina Low Country, 1740–1790. By Robert Olwell. Ithaca, New York and London: Cornell University Press. 1999. xiv+294 pp. Maps, illustrations, notes, and index. $49.95 (cloth); $17.95 (paper).

Slave Counterpoint: Black Culture in the Eighteenth-Century Chesapeake and Lowcountry. By Philip D. Morgan. Chapel Hill, North Carolina and London: University of North Carolina Press, 1999. xxiv+703 pp. Maps, illustrations, tables, and index. $49.95 (cloth), $21.95 (paper).

Jews, Slaves and the Slave Trade: Setting the Record Straight. By Eli Faber. New York and London: New York University Press, 1998. xi+366 pp. Illustrations, tables, notes, bibliography, appendices, and index. $27.95.

Russell R. Menard
University of Minnesota

It is perhaps safe to say that the outpouring of scholarship on slavery and the struggles of enslaved persons in the Americas produced over the past quarter century has constituted one of the great achievements of modern historiography. Given the length and intensity of that scholarly effort, one wonders how much longer it can last. Surely, the field must soon run out of new perspectives, insights, and topics. Along with several other books published over the past three years the three books under review here show that we have not yet reached that stage and that historians are still able to find new and interesting things to say about the American slave experience.