Books by David Brion Davis

Analyzes American attitudes and reactions to revolutions.

Homicide has many social and psychological implications that vary from culture to culture and which change as people accept new ideas concerning guilt, responsibility, and the causes of crime. A study of attitudes toward homicide is therefore a method of examining social values in a specific setting. Homicide in American Fiction, 1798-1860 is the first book to contrast psychological assumptions of imaginative writers with certain social and intellectual currents in an attempt to integrate social attitudes toward such diverse subjects as human evil, moral responsibility, criminal insanity, social causes of crime, dueling, lynching, the "e;unwritten law"e; of a husband's revenge, and capital punishment. In addition to works of literary distinction by Cooper, Hawthorne, Irving, and Poe, among others, Davis considers a large body of cheap popular fiction generally ignored in previous studies of the literature of this period. This is an engrossing study of fiction as a reflection of and a commentary on social problems and as an influence shaping general beliefs and opinions.

This volume brings together one of the most provocative debates among historians in recent years. The centre of controversy is the emergence of the anti-slavery movement in the United States and Britain and the relation of capitalism to the development.

A meditation on the origins, experience and legacy of the institution of slavery. A series of interlocking essays cover topics such as slave resistance, the historical construction of race, and the connections between the abolitionist movement and the struggle for women's rights.

Challenging the boundaries of slavery ultimately brought on the Civil War and the unexpected, immediate emancipation of slaves long before it could have been achieved in any other way. This imaginative and fascinating book puts slavery into a new light and underscores anew the desperate human tragedy lying at the very heart of the American story.

Inhuman Bondage is the definitive study of slavery for our time, providing a global perspective on the subject with an emphasis on the United States. Davis is one of our preeminent historians and the authority on America's greatest historical problem.