One of the most iconic images of Black masculinity in the history of American slavery is a depiction of a bondman on bended knee. Bound in chains, the figure looks longingly upward to the heavens under a banner that reads, “Am I not a man and a brother?” Originally adopted as the seal of the Society for the Abolition of Slavery in England in the 1780s, that image cemented in the minds of many the emasculating effects of slavery. The idea that slavery robbed bondmen of their masculinity entered American historiography in U. B. Phillips's 1918 conception of the plantation as a “civilizing school” and in Stanley Elkins's 1959 depiction of “Sambo” as a standard plantation personality type. Later, Daniel Patrick Moynihan mobilized slavery's presumptive emasculating effects in The Negro Family: The Case for National Action (1965), arguing that slavery created a “matrifocal,” topsy-turvy Black family structure. More recently, historians interested in the lives of enslaved men have countered by insisting that bondmen created crucial social networks that provided avenues for the expression and performance of masculinity, even while under the threat of the lash. In this view, enslaved men resisted their degradation, provided for their families, and found support in the social spaces they created with other enslaved men. In Contesting Slave Masculinity, David Doddington explores how antebellum masculinity emerged not only from the communal impulses derived from homosocial support but also from the conflicted terrain of competition, grievance, and contestation. In chapters that treat resistance, authority, work, sex, and violence, Doddington argues that enslaved men pursued multiple, often conflicting ideas of masculinity.Some enslaved men associated true manhood with open resistance. For example, Isaac, the leader of a failed insurrection, took responsibility for the plot in a brash confession: “I am the man, and I am not afraid or ashamed to confess it” (37). Doddington traces the theme of resistant manhood in the writings of Black northern abolitionists, in narratives penned by formerly enslaved men, and in the recollections of formerly enslaved men and women interviewed under the auspices of the WPA. He finds that enslaved men often presented their open resistance as evidence of their honor, bravery, and courage, implying that bondmen who did not openly resist lacked the requisite qualities of manhood. But as Doddington makes clear, the equation of resistance with masculinity left enslaved men with a stark choice. They could either openly resist slavery and claim the reward of manhood or refuse rebellion and be subject to the emasculating insults of others.If some enslaved men defined manhood through open resistance, others assumed roles of authority on the plantation. Black slave drivers and overseers embraced a form of masculinity heavily influenced by antebellum ideas of responsibility, duty, and industry. As enforcers of plantation authority, slave drivers aligned their sense of self as men in direct opposition to those who resisted or absconded. By emphasizing their place atop a slave social hierarchy, slave drivers embraced a masculine identity defined by their comparative power over others. The figure of the slave driver persists as a trope in both popular and scholarly depictions of slave life. By some accounts, drivers were rank opportunists who ruled the plantation with a heavy hand in exchange for meager rewards. For others, slave drivers were crucial mediators who mollified the violence of the plantation by demonstrating furtive displays of kindness to their enslaved comrades. While avoiding any blanket characterization, Doddington concludes that the position of enslaved trustee “undermined political or communal solidarity among the enslaved” (65). Perhaps most important, Doddington argues that because Black drivers and overseers often conferred the privileges they received onto their families and loved ones, they may have prioritized personal obligations over community mandates to openly rebel and resist.In addition to resistance and authority, some enslaved men took advantage of quasi-independent economic activities to bolster their claims to manhood. By hiring out their time, tending to small gardens, or performing herculean tasks, some enslaved men claimed their masculine bona fides through work. These men provided small but meaningful provisions for loved ones. But the opportunity to engage in these economic activities depended on the approval of enslavers, thereby requiring accommodation to plantation authority. As Doddington notes, enslavers often weaponized the language of industry, thrift, and hard work to attach compliance to manliness. Enslaved men who refused the mandate of hard work and accommodation were often denigrated as lazy and less manly.While some enslaved men sought out masculinities that were rooted in public displays of resistance, authority, and strength, others “accommodated themselves to the sexually exploitative framework of Southern slavery and validated their manhood through expressions of sexual dominance” (127). The idea of African American men as violently hypersexual is one of the most persistent and debilitating legacies of slavery. That stereotype has been deployed to justify discrimination, harassment, and racial violence against African American men, including state-sanctioned incarceration and execution, mob violence, and lynching. Perhaps for this reason, recent historiography has emphasized the positive aspects of enslaved masculinity, focusing on bondmen's role as protectors and providers for their families and loved ones, and as upholders of antebellum ideas of gallantry and chivalry in their relationships with women. While acknowledging the importance of these portrayals, Doddington views Black masculinity as a complicated terrain in which some enslaved men exhibited sexual dominance over women as “proof of a masculine identity” (170).Historians have often viewed the free time and leisure spaces that characterized the plantation as a crucial arena for community building and solidarity among the enslaved. From sundown to sunup, enslaved men and women enjoyed a few hours of rest, recuperation, and community building. But as Doddington argues, free time and leisure space provided a key stage where ideas about masculinity played out, often in violent ways. Through tests of strength, verbal insults, and physical confrontations, enslaved men demonstrated their manhood and, in the process, called into question the masculinity of their competitors.Contesting Slave Masculinity is well researched and clearly presented. Doddington makes excellent use of court cases, nineteenth-century slave narratives, and WPA 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.