Abstract Why did some American Protestant denominations experience slavery-related schism during the nineteenth century, while others appear to have been unaffected by slavery conflict? I conduct a comparative case study of four national and find that was not consequence particular theological orientation, but instead occurred when denominational leaders lacked capacity repress abolitionism. In...

IF THE BEST-KNOWN aspects of African slavery remain the horrors of the middle passage and the travail of plantation life in the Americas, recent work has nonetheless provided some important reminders of the Old World ramifications of slavery (Miller 1988; Meillassoux 1986; Miers and Roberts 1988; Manning in press-a). Millions of slaves were sent from sub-Saharan Africa to serve in households an...

How did American racial attitudes originate? How can we make sense of consistent and stubborn regional divides on race and race-related questions? Why is the South more conservative than other parts of the country? This book tackles these questions by arguing that contemporary politics is shaped in part by the historical persistence of political attitudes. To explain contemporary attitudes on r...