The Slave Power Conspiracy and the Paranoid Style
by David Brion Davis
Walter Lynwood Fleming Lectures in Southern History (1970)
On This Page
Description
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 lessTags
Recommendations
Members
- Recently Added By
Author Information

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
Series
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
- 322.4 — Society, government, & culture Political science Relation of the state to organized groups and their members Political action groups
- LCC
- E441 .D25 — History of the United States United States Revolution to the Civil War, 1775/1783-1861 Slavery in the United States. Antislavery
Statistics
- Members
- 35
- Popularity
- 819,641
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper
- ISBNs
- 2





















































