In our political discourse, slavery is a minefield of stereotypes, tropes, and outright lies. The great value of this book is that it interprets slave life in the words of those who experienced and observed it firsthand. The result, in my opinion, is a wonderfully nuanced, largely qualitative, portrait that digs more deeply into its reality than any other source that I know. Nonetheless, if the occasional doses of anthropology thrown in are useful, they do feel dated, i.e. Marxist.
Genovese argues that there are a number of core notions to the American version of slavery. First, it was a paternalist institution, implying reciprocity. In exchange for working, so the thinking goes, the slaveholders would take care of their slaves in a fatherly fashion, because at any rate slaves were essentially incapable of adult responsibility; they offered them a home, food, and retirement "benefits" when no longer capable of working. Not only does Genovese challenge the self-serving hypocrisy behind this (it was designed to discipline slaves while justifying brutality), but he goes into great detail about the underhanded leverage it offered to the slaves to preserve their dignity and integrity to the greatest possible degree. Slaveholder myopia, he concludes, was revealed in the shock and feelings of betrayal that they expressed when emancipated slaves left them - they deluded themselves, as many continue to do to this day; in their eyes, the slaves were inexplicably "ungrateful" for all that was given them.
Second, he describes the legal paradox of slavery. On the one hand, slaves were property, supposedly they existed as an extension of the will of the slaveholder. This made them objects, arbitrarily punishable with the greatest cruelty. On the other hand, slaves were recognized as having free will, necessitating legal responsibility for their actions but also an acknowledgement that they needed to be managed properly in order to get the best work out of them. The way that this paradox was solved, according to Genovese, was a reliance on local custom rather than a pan-regional legal regime, including legal protections and in some cases the right to self defense against white overseers; in this scheme, "bad" slaveholders were ostracized by their peers, though what kind of an impact this might have had is beyond me.
Third, the slaves developed their own versions of Christianity, which served both resistance to the institution and accommodation. To paraphrase Genovese, Christianity promoted acceptance of what had to be endured while resisting despair and dehumanization with visions of salvation and justice. Unlike slaveholders who asked forgiveness, it was an instrument for slaves to demand recognition and the right to some spiritual autonomy. The black preacher could become idealist, politician, intriguer, moral authority, learned - in other words, power players. Of course, Christian services were also occasions for communal celebration and mutual aid.
Fourth, plantation work (which occupied about 1/3 of the entire slave population) existed somewhere between traditional peasant labor and that of an industrialized proletariat. It operated in accordance with the rhythms of the harvest, but also required a much higher level of organization. Within the paternalist system, discipline was brutally imposed from above, which, Genovese argues, did not prepare slaves for the post-war transition to a wage-based capitalist economy that offered them no paternalistic care, particularly when they could no longer work.
Fifth, Genovese goes on at great length about the strengths of the slave family, which he argued became weaker with emancipation rather than representing a trait somehow inherent in blacks. He argues, quite convincingly, that more research must be done in this area. In part, he was reacting to the assumptions of the Moynihan report, which, he believed, projected current problems uncritically into the past.
These are very interesting concepts that added greatly to my understanding. However, the age of the book is revealed by the references that Genovese makes: there is Marx, of course, but also Gramsci and even Hegel, in addition to many academics then current, such as EP Thompson. However influential it was at the time, the obscurity of the Moynihan reference also reflects the outdatedness of the book. Perhaps someone has updated the content of the book, but I still think it sets a standard in the field. (If anyone has suggestions on contemporary books, please add them in comments.)
Furthermore, this is not a comprehensive narrative, but set in the time when slavery as an institution was more or less established. While there is some evolution, its approach is largely static. Instead, the book is organized around themes, the unity of which can be very difficult to discern in Genovese's occasionally abstruse and indirect style. You have to read the book slowly. It is about high undergraduate level.
Overall, this is a great and dense read. I warmly recommend it to anyone willing to make the effort.
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