As the subject matter of the book itself is the recent historiography of slavery in the Old South, the main purpose of this bibliography is to draw together and, where necessary, to supplement information and evaluation scattered through the various chapters and their notes. This short essay does not set out to provide a comprehensive bibliography of slavery; like the book itself, the bibliography concentrates on the more important book length studies and refers to articles only where they are absolutely essential, and where the topic or the views of a particular historian would not otherwise be adequately covered. For studies of some of the more specialized topics, the reader will be referred to the relevant note or notes in a specific chapter.
It is not easy to digest the full implications of the expansion and transformation of the study of slavery which has taken place during the last generation. Until at least the second World War, the conventional wisdom on the subject derived above all from the work of Ulrich B. Phillips and his followers. It was essentially a view of slavery from above, focusing on the place of slavery in the Southern economy and in Southern white society, which was based on exclusively white sources, particularly plantation records, and which accepted the racial assumptions of the prevailing Southern white culture. It is true that this view was already under challenge in the inter-war period. The new impetus owed much to a small but growing band of black historians, inspired by a remarkable pioneer, Carter G. Woodson, and sustained by the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History and the Journal of Negro History, and led into the next generation by a figure of towering authority in John Hope