The Slave Power Conspiracy and the Paranoid Style

by David Brion Davis

Walter Lynwood Fleming Lectures in Southern History (1970)

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Prior to the Civil War, both the North and South rallied energetic support for the causes of abolitionism and slavery by evoking the imagery of subversive conspiracies. The book examines these alleged conspiracies within the concept of the paranoid style, a psychological device for projecting various symbols of evil on an opponent to build emotional unity through feelings of alarm and peril. Examines the origins of conspiratorial imagery and analyzes its impact and broader historical show more implications. Emphasizes that actual conspiracies are not as significant as the movements against alleged conspiratorial groups. show less

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21+ Works 2,028 Members
David Brion Davis was born in Denver, Colorado on February 16, 1927. After Army service in postwar occupied Germany, he received a bachelor's degree in philosophy from Dartmouth College in 1950 and a Ph.D. in American history from Harvard University in 1956. He taught at Dartmouth and Cornell University before moving to Yale University in 1970. He show more was awarded a Sterling professorship in 1978 and was the founding director of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance and Abolition in 1998. He retired from teaching full time in 2001. He wrote or edited 16 books during his lifetime including Homicide in American Fiction, 1798-1860: A Study in Social Values; Slavery and Human Progress; In the Image of God: Religion, Moral Values, and Our Heritage of Slavery; and Inhuman Bondage: The Rise and Fall of Slavery in the New World. He received a Pulitzer Prize in 1967 for The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture, a National Book Award and the Bancroft Prize in 1976 for The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, and a National Book Critics Circle Award in 2014 for The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Emancipation. He died on April 14, 2019 at the age of 92. (Bowker Author Biography) show less

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Common Knowledge

Canonical title
The Slave Power Conspiracy and the Paranoid Style
Original publication date
1970
Important places
USA; Southern States, USA
Disambiguation notice
1970 edition: The slave power conspiracy and the paranoid style

Classifications

Genres
Nonfiction, History, Politics and Government, General Nonfiction
DDC/MDS
322.4Society, government, & culturePolitical scienceRelation of the state to organized groups and their membersPolitical action groups
LCC
E441 .D25History of the United StatesUnited StatesRevolution to the Civil War, 1775/1783-1861Slavery in the United States. Antislavery

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35
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Languages
English
Media
Paper
ISBNs
2