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Essays on the slave experience in America written in 1976 with the backdrop of the America's bicentennial underway ... Read more

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Perspectives and Irony in American Slavery
Few institutions have had as much influence on American history as the institution of slavery. For at least three centuries slavery has generated discussion, heated debate, or active denunciation. Perspectives and Irony in American Slavery is an attempt by seven distinguished historians to offer, not consensus, but seven perspectives which range from Eugene D. Genovese's interpretation as seen from a world view to John Blassingame's essays reflecting the slaves' view of their community.

Carl N. Degler's essay develops the idea of irony in American slavery, one of the major themes of this work. Examining slaveryin its international setting, Eugene D. Genovese interprets in his essay the relationships between emerging capitalism and slavery and the conflicts between the industrial revolution and the old landed classes. David Brion Davis concentrates on American attitudes toward slavery by viewing the abolitionists' arguments against slavery as being shaped, in part, by the southern defense of slavery: both sides of the conflict, according to Davis, ironically failed to develop along the central force of slavery.

Stanley L. Engerman, co-author of the controversial study, Time on the Cross, emphasizes the importance of market functions as he interprets the southern slave economy. William K. Scarborough's essay of the slave owner, concentrates on the large plantations and offers a perspective which emphasizes the paternalistic nature of slavery. John W. Blassingame examines slavey, not from the planter's house, but from the slave quarters and offers insights into the complex relationships and status symbols within the slave community. Kenneth M. Stampp's essay concludes this volume by presenting his interpretation of the role of historians and their continuing investigation of American Negro slavery.

Perspectives and Irony in American Slavery is an outgrowth of a symposium entitled "The Slave Experience in America: A Bicentennial Perspective," sponsored by the University of Mississippi in October, 1975.
--- from book's dustjacket ... Read more

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This work explores the dynamic issues of race and religion within the Cherokee Nation and to look at the role of secret societies in shaping these forces during the nineteenth century. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (1)

Evolution from slavery to indenture to "fragile freedom"
6/22/09 the contents of author Dunbar's book is described in much detail via a ques. and ans. interview on the Comcast Cable "community programs' of Pennsylvania's Book Tours. According to Dunbar, her book focuses on the slavery environmentin the North (especially in Pennsylvania, New York, Maryland and Delaware) and the period of time:its inception in America,in the 1700's almost a century prior to the Civil War), and inclusive of "the whys"(aka reasons)besides the obvious "ethical reasons", for the end of slavery for slaves ofAfrican descent,especially with Pennsylvania laws which began their attrition out of slavery in most cases(around age 28) much due to the Quaker influence. Another book on that topic & "geography(the north/but in Haley's book also in the south)Alex Haley's book ,a fiction,"A Different kind of Christmas)does much on the environment(especially the Quakers) in Philadelphia using a free black(a male of African descent)who became a successful entrepreneur...Dunbar's non fiction obviously reflects much research in thisnonfiction work and how it affected the lives and psyche of many. ... Read more

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With the publication of the ten-volume Supplement, Series 2, this important reference source is completed. On publication of earlier volumes, Choice has commented; "As a source for the study of slavery from the bottom up, the narratives are invaluable." ... Read more

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Comparing the workings and effects of slavery in two New World colonies--Virginia and Cuba--Mr. Klein dramatically confirms institutional differences in Latin American and North American slavery. ... Read more

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Even while slavery existed, Americans debated slavery. Was it a profitable and healthy institution? If so, for whom? The abolition of slavery in 1865 did not end this debate, and it still remains among the most hotly disputed topics in American history. Smith outlines the main contours of this debate, summarizes the contending viewpoints, and weighs the relative importance, strengths and weaknesses of the various interpretations. This book introduces an important topic in American history in a manner that is accessible to students. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Useless marxist analysis
Great book if you want to explore the feebleness of marxist analysis.Author spends two of seven chapters trying to work out a definition of profit, and fails.Well, you will not get an analysis of profitability if you do not have a useful definition of profit.Besides, in 20th century America (when this book was written) there was no problem with the definition of profit, so what was his problem?His problem, of course, is he is a marxist, and a mighty big problem that turns out to be.
If you want an economic analysis of Southern slavery, you will do better with "Time On The Cross", which is one of the earliest exercises in investigating ante-bellum slavery with modern economic tools.

Mark M. Smith's writing and pedagogy...
For the first time, when a professor assigned his book, I was happy to read it. Smith's doe brown eyes didn't hurt, either.

A Dull Primer on the Historiography of Slavery
In 'Debating Slavery', Mark M. Smith has made quite an achievement: he took two topics which I personally find fascinating - American Negro Slavery and Historiography - and managed to produce a sordid essay, that is almost entirely unenlightening and literally painful to read.

Smith's book exposes the opinions of scholars of slavery on several key questions about the 'peculiar institution':Was slavery profitable?Were slave owners Capitalists?And to what extent did the owners control the life and culture of slaves?

Smith's answer to all these questions seems to be a variation on 'to an extent'.Slaveholders were part Capitalist and part not Capitalists, and what is Capitalism anyway?The Slaves had their own culture but where very influenced by the masters, etc.I don't mind ambiguity and nuance in analysis, but Smith comes off not as complex but as indecisive.

It doesn't help that Smith's narrative is little more then a list of scholars's opinions, along with citations and reference.There are some attempts to flash out the argument (often using graphs and charts), but those are halfhearted.Smith seems to think that reference is a substitute for an argument.

In what is essentially an extended bibliographical essay, one would expect a useful list of works sited.Unfortunately, even that is not properly done.After a short list of 'general books', Smith goes on to put a separate bibliography for each chapter, without repeating titles.As a result, if you are trying to locate a reference to a book in chapter five, for instance, you may have to look through the bibliographies of all the preceding chapters, as the work you're looking for may be mentioned in any of them.

All in all, Debating Slavery is a mercilessly bad book.The only good thing I can say about it is that it is short; but that just means it's overpriced:-)

A Brilliant and Provocative Analysis
In his second book on slavery in two years, Professor Mark Smith of the Unievrsity of South Carolina has established himself as one of this generation's more astute historians. Eschewing traditional"either-or" schools of historical interpretation, he provides arational, yet passionate, examination of the institution of slavery. Whileolder historians have gotten themselves all wrapped up in economic theorieswith all sorts of litmus tests, Smith takes a more reasoned approach. Wasthe South pre-modern? (In some ways, it was). Was the South modern? (Insome ways, it was). This is not acadmeic equivocationg, for Smith makes astrong argument that the South was BOTH. His concluding paragraph says itall: "Instead of arguing for the modernity or premodernity of the OldSouth, we can begin to see how the region, while it retained slavery as thebasis for its political identity and social and economic relations, wasnone the less modernizing its economic system even as it eschewed thedemocratic tendencies of nineteenth-century liberalism." Brilliantly argued in highly readable prose, this is a must-read for anyonewho truly wants to understand the Old South.

Superb historiographical essay on slavery in the US South
A welcome addition to Cambridge's distinguished series, Dr. Smith provides a superb summation of the often tortured gymnastics that historians perform to fit slavery in America, and the antebellum American South in general, into Marxist theory.The tireless (unquestioning) quest of historians ofthe US South to squeeze the antebellum period into a"premodern/modern" interpretation has been diffused.Anexcellent historiographical work and a must read for any student of theperiod.Highly recommended! ... Read more

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While the transition urban African Americans made from slavery to freedom in the North has been the subject of much scholarship, the experiences of their rural counterparts has remained largely hidden. Focusing on the development of a single African American community in eastern New Jersey, Professor Hodges examines the experience of slavery and freedom in the rural North. This unique social history addresses many long held assumptions about the experience of slavery and emancipation outside the plantation South. Hodges weaves an intricate pattern of life and death, work and worship, from the earliest settlement to the end of the Civil War. ... Read more

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"Slavery received an early start in New Jersey..."
In late 1775, sensing that the time for emancipation and liberty was at hand, a slave named Titus quietly slipped away from his master in Monmouth County, New Jersey. Richard Corliss, the slaveholder, offered three poundsreward for the capture and return of Titus.Titus did return, but asColonel Tye, and he fought gallantly in the Battle of Monmouth, nearFreehold. A year later, Colonel Tye did something even more extraordinary.Once again he returned to Monmouth County as leader of an integratedguerilla unit. Tye's intimate knowledge of Monmouth County swamps, riversand woods served him well, as he and his group plundered the farms andestates of wealthy slaveholders, escaping to a hide out on Sandy Hook.These depredations continued for a year until Tye received a bullet woundand died of lockjaw. Tye would be an honored figure in American history butfor one problem: This was the Revolutionary War, not the Civil War, and Tyewas fighting on the British side. As far as he was concerned, Tye wasfighting for the right side. On November 7, 1778, the Earl of Dunmore,Governor of Virginia, promised freedom to all slaves "willing to serveHis Majesty's forces to end the present rebellion." If you had been aslave, which side would you have chosen? An embryonic nation apparentlycommitted to slavery and largely governed by slaveholders, or a powerfulmaritime empire that promised you your freedom? This wonderful story abouta courageous man, which I had never heard before, comes from an eye-openingbook by Graham Russell Hodges, "Slavery and Freedom in the RuralNorth: African Americans in Monmouth County, 1665-1865," from MadisonHouse Publishers in cooperation with the Friends of the Monmouth CountyPark System.Hodges lets the facts speak for themselves. From censusfigures, newspaper accounts, county and church records, business ledgers,wills, and reward postings for the capture of escaped slaves, we arereminded that New Jersey was a rural state that had much in common with theupper South - Lincoln never carried New Jersey. We did not have largeplantations, but slaveholding was common and acceptable enough to make uscloser to tidewater Maryland and Virginia than to New England in many ofour attitudes.Slavery received an early start in New Jersey and rootedstrongly enough to end slowly, grudgingly and later than any otherNortheastern states. Vestiges of servitude lingered on into the TwentiethCentury, with many African Americans economically bound to the same whitefamilies that had once owned them as property.Hodges gives particularattention to the role played by organized religion in the justification andmaintenance of slavery, as well as in its gradual demise. The second partof Hodges' book deals with New Jersey's emancipation period, which saw adeclining slave population and the growing strength of Monmouth County'sfree black community up to the Civil War. Local tax rolls reveal anincreasing number of mostly poor, yet free, African Americans, a few ofwhom managed to acquire considerable farm acreage. Tables throughout thebook show the distribution of free and slave populations by town and byyear. Poet William Carlos Williams advises that we will find what isuniversal by examining what is found locally. By taking a magnifying glassto the 200 year history of slavery in a single New Jersey county, GrahamRussell Hodges brings to light the degradation, violence, hypocrisy, andmoral ambiguities of a terrible institution as it was experienced in thisstate, by people we would have known or even could have been. Its pages arefilled with surnames still listed in our telephone books. It is a powerfulbook. Bob Rixon, WFMU-FM, Jersey City, NJ ... Read more

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This title is winner of the Willie Lee Rose Publication Prize, the Southern Association of Women Historians, 1998. The courage and vigor with which African-American women fought for their freedom during and after the Civil War are firmly at the center of this groundbreaking study. Focusing on slave women on the rice plantations of lowcountry South Carolina, Leslie Schwalm offers a thoroughly researched account of their vital roles in antebellum plantation life and in the wartime collapse of slavery, and their efforts as freedwomen to recover from the impact of war while redefining life and labor in the postbellum period. Freedwomen fiercely asserted their own ideas of what freedom meant and insisted on important changes in the work they performed for white employers and in their own homes. They rejected the most unpleasant or demeaning tasks, guarded prerogatives gained under a slave economy, and defended their vision of freedom against unwanted intervention by Northern whites and the efforts of former owners to restore slavery's social and economic relations during Reconstruction. ... Read more

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Enslaved African American Women
Leslie A. Schwalm's text revolves around enslaved African American women on South Carolina low country rice plantations. Her focus is their transition from slavery to freedom, their push to hasten the demise of slavery, their struggle to achieve and maintain autonomy over their labor, their resistance, and their plight for dignity while they battled for respect in their own households. Schwalm contends that enslaved African American women slowed plantation production and took advantage of every opportunity presented by the Civil War to secure their freedom.Enslaved African American women were expected to be productive field laborers', in fact, they lay at the very heart of South Carolina low country rice plantation labor. With the Civil War approaching, rice agriculture in the South Carolina low country depended primarily on the hands and backs of slave women. Field labor was not the only responsibility these slave women had to keep in mind, they also had to perform motherly and household duties. Domestic production and field labor, Schwalm contends, were central to a slave women's experience. The Civil War presented enslaved African American women with opportunitites to ease the grips of slavery while they contested the terrible conditions on South Carolina low country plantations. This form of resistance eventually became more aggressive. In the early months of freedom, freed women attacked overseers, looted planters houses, destroyed planters property, and draped themselves and their children in their former masters clothing as a sign of protest and changing times.With their freedom seemingly secure, former slave women turned their attention to the control of their labor. They demanded the ability to live and work as they saw fit and seperate from white supervision. They had their own concepts of freedom and were determined to labor as free people and not as slaves.The slave womens family depended upon her work as much as the rice field did. The task system of labor afforded slave!women the opportunity to devote daylight hours to domestic production. This was crucial to family development. Slave women used their "after task time" to hire themselves out, grow their own crop, fish, and make family utensils. Slaves viewed production, independent from plantation production, as a way to elevate their standard of living and exercise control over their daily life. Slave women applied these same principles in a free labor work force after emancipation.The military experience had a dramatic impact on the relationships between freedmen and women. People believed that the military experience equated to manhood. Proving their manhood through military experience was a goal for black soldiers, their advocates and and white officers. This sentiment carried over to post was relationships between free black men and women. Leslie A. Schwalm's " A Hard Fight For We" is critical for painting a more complete picture of rice plantation labor in South Carolina's low country. We see that enslaved women were depended upon heavily and they fought for their recognition. ... Read more

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Spanning four decades of debate on slavery and antislavery, this provocative volume by leading historian Seymour Drescher provides an in-depth comparative analysis of the transatlantic slave trade and abolition movements of nineteenth-century Europe and the Americas, and their ongoing impact on twentieth-century politics and race relations.

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Customer Reviews (1)

Fantastic
As a student of history (Ok - I'll grant you I have only a dilettante status) I must say this is a book that everyone should read. Dusinberre doesn't spare the grisly details and approaches the subject from a variety of angles. You'll get the view of the charnel house and from planters.

All to better illuminate a ghastly system that put so many into the grinder.

Powerful and well written. If you love the Palmetto State and history in general then I highly recommend this one.
... Read more

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A comprehensive history of African-American humor--from the antebellum South to the Apollo Theater--reassesses such figures as Stepin Fetchit and Amos and Andy and offers a new appreciation of familiar and less well-known performers. 20,000 first printing. ... Read more

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Incredible history of black humor...
This is a book on the history of comedy as done by African-Americans, but it is as much an American History lesson. You can't really separate the two, as humor is often born out of a way to soothe a painful event in one's life. Or even a painful life. LL&S is an engrossing study as how comedy by black comics and comedians evolved through the 19th and 20th centuries, but also how it strove to maintain its integrity in a white culture that was more interested in laughing AT black people, than laughing WITH the,.

I was impressed that I could learn about the conflicts of a Bert Williams, the wealth and conflict of Steppin Fetchit, and let's be honest - most readers only know Redd Foxx through "Sanford n Son". This book really captures all of these legends - Dick Gregory, Pigmeat Markham, Mombs Mabley... and more. The only downside is that any comic after Richard Pryor gets short shrift. Given the rise of Eddie Murphy, Chris Rock, and Dave Chappelle, an updated version of this book would be wonderous. Even moreso would be a companion DVD featuring slices of the performances of these giants. ... Read more

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This work contributes to the study of slavery in Africa by emphasizing the roles Africans played both as slaves and slavers. It uses comparative and eclectic approaches to demonstrate that in the different types of indigenous states in Africa, slavery was never a common phenomenon. In Centralized states it emanated from indigenous servitude and formed an integral component of the elaborate kinship system. In the non-Centralized states it was introduced by the trans-system and it fulfilled an economic function. ... Read more

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The history of how blacks came to America is generally not found in city hall documents, but in the old Black churches and in the hearts and minds of elderly blacks who attended those churches. Through oral history and participant observation, this book attempts to unfold the story of what really occurred in the development of northeastern American towns and cities through the events that took place in Plainfield, New Jersey. This town was chosen for the study because of its large African-American population (65-70%), and the concentration of churches which were established around 1900. ... Read more

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In 1900 very few historians were exploring the institution of slavery in the South. But in the next half century, the culture of slavery became a dominating theme in Southern historiography. In the 1970s it was the subject of the first Chancellor's Symposium in Southern History held at the University of Mississippi. Since then, scholarly interest in slavery has proliferated ever more widely. In fact, the editor of this retrospective volume states that since the 1970s "the expansion has resulted in a corpus that has a huge number of components-scores, even hundreds, rather than mere dozens." He states that "no such gathering could possibly summarize all the changes of those twenty-five years."

Hence, for the Chancellor Porter L. Fortune Symposium in Southern History in the year 2000, instead of providing historiographical summary, the participants were invited to formulate thoughts arising from their own special interests and experiences. Each paper was complemented by a learned, penetrating reaction.

"On balance," the editor avers in his introduction, "reflection about the whole can convey a further sense of the condition of this field of scholarship at the very end of the last century, which was surely an improvement over what prevailed at the beginning."

The collection of papers includes the following: "Logic and Experience: Thomas Jefferson's Life in the Law" by Annette Gordon-Reed, with commentary by Peter S. Onuf; "The Peculiar Fate of the Bourgeois Critique of Slavery" by James Oakes, with commentary by Walter Johnson; "Reflections on Law, Culture, and Slavery" by Ariela Gross, with commentary by Laura F. Edwards; "Rape in Black and White: Sexual Violence in the Testimony of Enslaved and Free Americans" by Norrece T. Jones, Jr., with commentary by Jan Lewis; "The Long History of a Low Place: Slavery on the South Carolina Coast, 1670-1870" by Robert Olwell, with commentary by William Dusinberre; "Paul Robeson and Richard Wright on the Arts and Slave Culture" by Sterling Stuckey, with commentary by Roger D. Abrahams.

Winthrop D. Jordan is William F. Winter Professor of History and professor of African American studies at the University of Mississippi. His previous books include White Over Black: American Attitudes toward the Negro, 1550-1812 and The White Man's Burden: Historical Origins of Racism in the United States, and his work has been published in the Atlantic Monthly, Daedalus, and the Journal of Southern History, among other periodicals. ... Read more

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As slaves, African-Americans were virtually invisible in American history.Although photography was introduced to this country in l840, precious few images of African-Americans survive today. Even after the Civil War there were not many African-American photographers, and very few black people had the time, money or freedom for a portrait sitting.Consequently, little photographic evidence remains to bear witness to the lives of four and a half million Americans of African descent.

Jackie Napolean Wilson, whose own grandfather was born a slave in South Carolina between l853 and l855, has assembled the most comprehensive and significant collection of such images ever brought together in one place. The concrete reality reflected in daguerreotypes, ambrotypes and tintypes presents these men and women in situations and attire that bring the truth of their daily lives much closer to us. Such scenes of maternal affection, matrimony, friendship, war and the grim reality of the master/slave relationship help focus our perception of the African-American experience in America in ways not otherwise available to the modern reader. Among these images is the only picture of Abraham Lincoln in the company of an African-American and the earliest known daguerreotype of Frederick Douglass (circa 1843).
Amazon.com Review
The image is striking: A woman gazes serenely at the camera,baby cradled in her arms in classic Madonna-and-child pose. Morestriking is the fact that the sitters are black, and the photographdates from 1860. Few photographs from the mid-19th century featureAfrican Americans, enslaved or free. Those that do are often stagedand reflect the biases of the photographer or the printmaker whopublished them. Others, however, provide glimpses of daily life beforethe abolition of slavery.

Renowned collector of early photographs Jackie Napolean Wilson hascompiled 70 such images in Hidden Witness. Eachphotograph--whether an outdoor scene, where slaves are afterthoughtsin the frame, so-called Mammy portraits of slaves holding whitechildren, studio portraits of proud freemen and women--is accompaniedby a brief explanation, contextualizing the image and speculating onthe nature of the pictured relationships. Some of the subjects arefamous, such as Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass; others, thoughunknowns, carry a force of their own: the exuberant grin of theprizewinning boxer, the proud stance of a Union soldier, the quietdignity of a slave nurse. A handsome addition to the history ofAfrican Americans and photography. --Sunny Delaney ... Read more

Customer Reviews (11)

Fantastic History in living color
This book is breath taking.The stories will grab your heart and the pictures are priceless.This book is sold for hundreds of dollars on the market.I can see why, because the pictures and background information is historical and penatrating on every level.I loved this book.

Take a walk...............way back!

A glimpse of pictures of African Americans way back when photos of African Americans were rarely taken.

I am interested in purchasing more copies....so if you have copies that you are not interested in........... I'm interested in purchasing them.

Precious history.
This book has photographs to treasure.To see black people at this period of history recorded in photographs is a precious thing.However, I must agree with the consensus that the text is worthless, which is why I didn't give the book five stars.I was not interested in the author's guesses about these people and many times he wasactually obnoxious in his anxiety to make sure the reader saw the photographs with his spin on them.

Particularly moving, besides the portrait on the front of the woman and child were the memorial photograph of the dead baby, and the couple of photos of slaveslined up in front a plantation.It was interesting to see, although it was not the common experience that there were already so many black middle-class pre-slavery, or at least, so many blacks managed to dress up for even a one-time portrait.I have some older photos in my family and I know from that that people put their best foot forward and rented clothes that were better than their usual ones and so forth for portraits.Also, even in the 19th century it was possible to retouch photos and remove things that they did not want to be seen.

Let the eyes tell us what the picture means
The photographs are great!! I just wish that the author had let them speak for themselves, or if he felt that he must say something, tell us what he felt when looking at the photos.I don't think that there is a person over the age of 8 that doesn't know about the difficult times that African American faced and still face, but to add them as facts to the photographs is just a bit much.God I want just one book that has photographs of us that talk about our pride and strength seen in our eyes by the len.

Precious Images
These photographs are gorgeous. Many of the readers have probably never seen early photos of free and even prosperous proud ante-bellum black people. I would give this book five stars were it not for the commentary. Jackie Napoleon Wilson tries so hard to interpret the photos that he makes ridiculous assumptions. There is no way to know what was going on in thesepeople's heads. As other reviewers have pointed out, becuase of the daugeretype's long exposure time the man in the photo on page 3 didn't just get caught in the scene he must have been posed. When Wilson says the woman and daughter on page 13 didn't have a close attachment he's speaking nonsense. How on earth can you tell that?Despite the commentary this book is a worthy addition to the bookshelf of anyone who is interested in history. ... Read more

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This book explores the formation of the African-American identity through the theory of cultural trauma. The trauma in question is slavery, not as an institution or as personal experience, but as collective memory--a pervasive remembrance that grounded a people's sense of itself. Ron Eyerman offers insights into the intellectual and generational conflicts of identity-formation which have a truly universal significance, and provides a new and compelling account of the birth of African-American identity. ... Read more

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Challenging traditional assumptions about the plantation economy's reliance on a pre-modern, nature-based conception of time, Mark M. Smith shows how and why southerners--particularly masters and their slaves--came to view the clock as a legitimate arbiter of time. Ironically, Smith shows, freedom largely consolidated the dependence of masters as well as freedpeople on the clock . ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

An original and accessible look at time and slavery.
This remarkable first book by Dr. Smith has already won two of the history profession's highest awards.The historical society named it the best book of history for 1997 and it shares the prestigious Avery O. Craven Award forthe most original book on the Civil War era. Smith's observations of theslaves' adjustment to and manipulation of measured time are fascinating. The portrait of plantation life and the effect of the normalization of timeon the South will be a revelation to anyone interested in Southern history.

One of the most important books on the South this decade..
Mark Smith has produced a masterpiece. His mastery of theory and primarymaterial is breath-taking. His willingness to take on such establishedscholars as Geonovese (and convince this reviewer that he is correct andthey were wrong) is the mark of a confident historian.

Would that allworks of history were as intellectually stimulatingas this. MASTERED BYTHE CLOCK is an example of the historian's craft at its best--somethingrarely seen these days. ... Read more

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When Jill Nelson became the first black woman to write for The Washington Post's prestigious Sunday magazine in 1986, she thought she had entered journalism heaven. But the magazine proved to be insulting to black readers, not to mention its black staffers. Here Nelson gives a scalding expose of one of our most respected newspapers. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (10)

Picking Corporate Cotton
Jill Nelson is the modern day Harriet Tubman, leading the mentally enslaved from the chains of industrial oppression to the freedom of self-determined realization.If you read this missive and don't ask yourself if you've ever compromised your integrity to further someone else's capitalist agenda, you've missed the point of this brilliant body of work.Angst, inner turmoil, and introspection abound on the pages and tell the tale of a woman trapped in the web of office politics and backstabbing that eat at your joy, that erode your sense of self-worth.What is the price of voluntarily whitewashing your identity to please people with an agenda that does not validate or acknowledge the talents you bring to the table as a person of color?It's so much more than the reflections of a sista who got a position with the Washington Post who got a case of buyer's remorse and didn't like her job.This is the impetus to assess what it is that is important in life and to run towards freedom.

You would have to walk in her shoes to understand
It is ironic yet predictable that most of the people who don't "get" this book, tend to be individuals who are either not female, African American or both.Jill Nelson wrote an honest critique of the experience that many African American women go through when trying to attain the proverbial golden rings in corporate America.I am sorry some folks could not relate or understand Ms. Nelson's book because the points she brings up are true and still reflective of the socialogical culture most African Americans live in today--approximately twenty years later.The patriarchal blindness that many in this culture experience that prevents them from understanding or relating to another individual or cultures experiences is sad yet expectedThe best that Ms. Nelson and other writers like her can do is just tell the story and let those who get "it" get it.

Were some of her experiences hard to hear?Most definitely.Were the experiences unique to her?Absolutely not.Ms. Nelson says on in chapter 2, that she has been doing the standard Negro balancing act which is "blurring the edges of [her] being so that they [white people] don't feel intimidated."There are few African Americans, I would venture to guess, who haven't experienced this feeling at one time or another, yet it is virtually impossible to communicate this experience in a way that is understandable to someone who hasn't had to always be "aware" of how they are perceived and how those perceptions can affect other African Americans as well.Ms. Nelson does an excellent job explaining these details and if some people are still clueless, well, it's through no fault of her skill as a writer.

Keep on shedding a spotlight on these issues Ms. Nelson.There are a few out there who are truly looking for the light.

Nearly 10 years later and Nelson's words still ring true....
Volunteer Slavery is STILL the book! Family, friends and coworkers are probably sick and tired of hearing me raving about the revealing, blistering and gossipy tell-all memoir! It's been nearly 10 years since the book was published, but I still regularly reread certain passages when I need inspiration, a good laugh, or a clearer understanding of the journalistic imbroglio with which I frequently have to deal with--after more than 15 years in the business!! Celebrate the anniversary of the BEST book EVER written about what it's REALLY like being a black journalist on the plantation...the newsroom at a daily newspaper!!

An insightful book.
As an African-American journalist, I found Jill Nelson's book to be very real. Those who criticize the book because Nelson strikes them as naive are missing the point, on at least two levels.

In the first place, thoughshe naturally gets into certain generalities, the book is primarily aboutHER experience. It's not intended to be a handbook for reporters who areclimbing the corporate ladder. Given her past, and her particularpersonality, this is the story of how she happened to react to a specificset of circumstances. How one judges her actions should be different fromthe way someone judges the book itself.

And secondly, to the extent thatthe book does have a larger intent, it calls for the dismantling of anoutrageously unfair system. Should we all just accept the status quo, andfind clever ways to navigate our way past pettiness and stupidity, orstrive for a sane alternative?

The fact is that Nelson has done justfine since she left the Post. Viewed in that context, the book is atestament to her courage, and her insistence on personal dignity.

A rare combination of self-pity that still makes you laugh
The only other author I ever read who so effectively combined self-pity and wry humor was Erica Jong. Jill Nelson turns a wicked phrase and makes her characters and her situations jump to life. I laughed aloud at herdescription of her teenage daughter telling her "Mom, get alife!" in response to her lecturing about black conciousness. Allthrough the book I kept wondering where Ms. Nelson's gripes came from.Because her dad left her mom for a white woman, as recounted in the book?She grew up in plush surroundings, with summers on Martha's Vineyard. Asthe number of unread pages shrank, I kept wondering if Ku Kluxers in whitesheets were going to suddenly show up in the book to explain her bitterfeelings about white males. Ms. Nelson said that white men are priveleged,but believe me, we too can be put through the grinder. I'm also a formernewspaper reporter, born the same year as Ms. Nelson. When she complainedabout her reporting duries at the Washington Post, saying "I was tooold to chase fire engines," I had to laugh. That's exactly what I wasdoing at another paper at the time she said that. I don't buy what JillNelson says, but I did enjoy the way she tells it. ... Read more