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and from the bOllom up of the distinct groupings of Ameri can society
in their rela ti onship to thi s institution-tha t is, of bl ack rural slaves,
white and bl ack rural slaveholders, free bl acks in town and country,
white nonslaveho lders in the country, whites anywhere, urban bl acks ,
factory bl acks, and a bo liti oni sts secul ar and confession al, to give onl y a
sampl e listing. Wha t is rema rkabl e about the avowals of compl exity in
this histori ogTaphi cal case is th e pervas ive tendency to formulate it in
terms of "contradi cti ons," "ambi guities," and " inconsistencies," for
these concepts and formul a ti on s sugges t a continuing unitary and even
logical point of reference, revea lin g the persistence of principl ed iss ues
through all the scho larl y qua lifi ca ti ons and cauti ons against oversim–
plifica ti on of the issues.
The schema is mos t pa tent in Genovese's
R o ll, J ordan, R o ll,
for
his sophisti ca ted Marxi st ca tegori es, modul a ted by a general infu sion
of Hegel (the Hegel of lordship-bondage fame), achi eve a linkage of
opposites in a dynami c di a lecti cal process tha t can accommoda te the
profu sion of vital-and oft en di screpant-social evidence he accumu–
lates. Under the rubri c o f the inherent contradi cti on in the concept of a
human slavery, Genovese develo ps po lar but continuously interactive
categories: on th e one side a slaveho lding class that expressed its
combined expl oita ti on of and dependence upon its slaves in a fl exibl e
spectrum of paternalisti c domina ti on ; on the o ther, a black slave class
that expressed bo th subo rdina ti on and se lf-asserti on in an autonomous
Afro-Ameri can culture with insistent claims of indefeasibl e ri ghts
within the conditi ons of nonresi stance. Because Genovese frequently
separates abstract expos iti on s of hi s organi zing concepts from the
rapid-fire sequence of concrete epi sodes, quo ta tions, and vignettes that
presumabl y illustra te them , the hold o f the ca tegori es on the ma teri al
sometimes seems tenuou s. Occasiona ll y, indeed , the di alectical play of
his concepts seems so li vely and inclusive as to preclude the poss ibility
of any pos iti on , however appa rently di ssonant, falling outside them .
Issues such as tha t o f the cruelty, indul gence, responsibility, or guilti–
ness of the masters, o f the compli ance or resistance of the slaves, and of
the Afri can or mimeti c sha res in th e slave culture tend to get reso lved
by comprehensiveness ra ther than decision , and readers who have been
brought up on the older either-or may find it hard
to
con sider such
settlements as resoluti ons a t a ll. But by and large the schema does
work: Genovese manages to account [or a grea ter range of evidence
and, by converting alterna ti ves into proportions, to strike a more
satisfying balance of intelligibility and factuality than anyon e hereto–
fore.
What confers genera lity upon thi s use o f traditi onal concepts-
