Author : Eugene D. Genovese
Release : 2017-10-05
Genre : History
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 398/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis The Sweetness of Life by : Eugene D. Genovese

Download or read book The Sweetness of Life written by Eugene D. Genovese. This book was released on 2017-10-05. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the home and leisure life of planters in the antebellum American South. Based on a lifetime of research by the late Eugene Genovese (1930–2012), with an introduction and epilogue by Douglas Ambrose, The Sweetness of Life presents a penetrating study of slaveholders and their families in both intimate and domestic settings: at home; attending the theatre; going on vacations to spas and springs; throwing parties; hunting; gambling; drinking and entertaining guests, completing a comprehensive portrait of the slaveholders and the world that they built with slaves. Genovese subtly but powerfully demonstrates how much politics, economics, and religion shaped, informed, and made possible these leisure activities. A fascinating investigation of a little-studied aspect of planter life, The Sweetness of Life broadens our understanding of the world that the slaveholders and their slaves made; a tragic world of both 'sweetness' and slavery.