The Roots of Populism: Neoliberalism and Working-Class Lives by Brian Elliott (review)

Abstract

Labor: Studies in Working-Class History, Volume 19, Issue 4 © 2022 by Labor and Working-Class History Association interviews. The result is a portrait of slave life, and of slave masculinity, that is highly contentious but deeply human. Violence pervades this book: in the vertical relationships between enslavers and enslaved, in the horizontal interactions of enslaved men, and in the lateral bonds that connected people in the larger plantation economy. As Doddington notes, “While enslaved men and women formed positive relationships with one another and created a strong gendered identity in their social spaces, they were also places where reputations were lost, and this mattered too” (210). Contesting Slave Masculinity is an excellent book that confirms, expands, and challenges much of what we know about the gendered nature of American slavery.