William Dusinberre is author of the award-winning Them Dark Days: Slavery in the American Rice Swamps.
"A good look at the very hard, often harsh, conditions on a new
plantation in a frontier area."--CHOICE
"This is a striking and important book. James K. Polk tried to keep
his activities as a slaveowner and absentee planter separate from
his public life as a politician and, eventually, president. William
Dusinberre brings the two sides of Polk's career together again. He
has done more than anyone else to examine the lives of Polk's
slaves, and reveals often-disturbing evidence about the harshness
of their conditions. He also shows how Polk's perspectives as a
planter shaped his administration's expansionist policies. This
will be essential reading for all interested in the debate on
slavery and the origins of the Civil War."--Christopher Clark,
University of
Warwick
"Slavemaster President is a powerful combination of careful
research, clear prose, and controlled passion. At the core of the
book is a meticulous reconstruction of James Knox Polk's cotton
plantation. But Dusinberre is after much bigger analytical fish
than a single case study would suggest: he uses Polk as a launching
pad for a full-scale reinterpretation of the antebellum South. In
so doing, he reintegrates the social and political history of
southern slave society, bringing us closer than ever to
understanding precisely how the politics of slavery led ultimately
to Civil War."--James Oakes, The Graduate Center, City University
of New York
"No other study that I can think of juxtaposes so revealingly the
personal experiences of the enslaved with those of their enslaver,
or the career of a slaveholder with the leadership of a president.
By bringing to life the world of the enslaved people for whom James
K. Polk was responsible even as Polk himself became responsible for
slavery's westward expansion, Dusinberre presents a truly original
synthesis of biography and social history that challenges us
to reexamine the politics of the sectional conflict."--James Brewer
Stewart, Macalester College
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