Race and Revolution (Merrill Jenson Lectures in Constitutional Studies) - Softcover

A powerful, forthright, and revisionist interpretation . . . thoroughly convincing. -- Linda K. Kerber The best history makes a difference in how we think about and feel the past. Race and Revolution is an important, tough-minded, provocative group of essays that contributes to our understanding of the most debilitating virus in the American system. Not only has Gary Nash illuminated the critical challenge of race and slavery in the revolutionary era and 'the most tragic failure' of American leaders, but he has brought to the forefront the long ignored role of black revolutionists in the early struggles for freedom. -- Leon F. Litwack, author of Been In the Storm So Long Gary Nash has written a powerful, forthright, and revisionist interpretation of the founding generation and slavery which challenges much received wisdom. I find it thoroughly convincing. -- Linda K. Kerber, author of Women of the Republic Race and Revolution is a bold and stirring documentation of the collapse of the devotion for liberty in America in the immediate wake of the American Revolution. While his interpretations will startle some, Gary Nash correctly finds that the demise of efforts to abolish slavery and incorporate blacks in American society proceeded directly from an increasingly conservative, white supremacist North, not a self-serving South. Finally, historians may be taking off the blinders that have perpetually obscured our ability to understand slavery and race as national, not regional problems. -- Larry E. Tise, author of Proslavery: A History of the Defense of Slavery in America Race and Revolution should become standard reading in graduate and undergraduate seminars. It is broadly conceived and engages the major historiographical issues in such a way as to suggest new avenues of investigation. -- R.J.M. Blackett, author of Building an Antislavery Wall: Black Americans in the Atlantic Abolitionist Movement A powerful book . . . a tightly argued and vigorous reassessment of the revolutionary generation's failure to eliminate slavery. * Journal of the Early Republic * Clearly written . . . [Nash]'s coverage of the free black community's vigorous efforts to achieve justice in white supremacist society in the northern states is particularly illuminating. * CHOICE *

Race and Revolution is a trenchant study of the revolutionary generation's early efforts to right the apparent contradiction of slavery and of their ultimate compromises that not only left the institution intact, but provided it with the protection of a vastly strengthened government after 1788. Race and Revolution describes the free black community's response to this failure of the revolution's promise, its vigorous and articulate pleas for justice, and the community's successes in building its own AfricanAmerican institutions within the hostile environment of early nineteenthcentury America.