This book asks to what extent Southern slaveholders believed the doctrine that enslavement was the best possible condition for all labor.

1. The impending collapse of capitalism; 2. Hewers of wood, drawers of water; 3. Travelers to the south, southerners abroad; 4. The squaring of circles; 5. The appeal to social theory; 6. Perceptions and realities.

Elizabeth Fox-Genovese (1941-2007) was Eleonore Raoul Professor of the Humanities at Emory University, where she was founding director of Women's Studies. She served on the Governing Council of the National Endowment for the Humanities (2002-2008). In 2003, President George Bush awarded her with a National Humanities Medal; the Georgia State senate honored her with a special resolution of appreciation for her contributions as a scholar, teacher, and citizen of Georgia; and the fellowship of Catholic Scholars bestowed on her its Cardinal Wright Award. Among her books and published lectures are: The Origins of Pysiocracy: Economic Revolution and Social Order in Eighteenth-Century France; Within the Plantation Household: Black and White Women of the Old South; and Feminism without Illusions: A Critique of Individualism.