White Elite Research Articles

USA: Political Elites Fragmentation and Russian-American Dialogue Prospects

Over the past 30–35 years, the United States has seen an increase in research into the role and transformation of American elites, including the political elite. In the second half of the 20th century, in the context of a bipolar world, the main focus was on the importance of social movements as a key factor determining the mechanism and specifics of the functioning of the political system. But as globalization processes increased, power groups began to play a major role, which de facto began to call themselves elites, i.e. a select part of society that significantly differs from other social strata and groups in terms of wealth, level of education, access to a wide range of privileges and other features. From a political and sociological perspective, studying elites, unlike studying mass movements, is more difficult due to the closed nature of most elite groups, as well as the vagueness and uncertainty of their social boundaries. In addition, the United States, as the richest country in the Western world, has begun to transform elite groups and turn them into oligarchs. In parallel, the liberal part of the American political elite came to the conclusion about the necessity of transforming the traditional white elite of American society, known as “white Anglo-Saxon Protestants”, into a “colored” elite of American society, consisting of a wide range of racial and ethnic groups and strata. As a consequence of the processes of “colorization” of the American political elite, its fragmentation began, which at present has taken the form of a fierce struggle between the old white elite and the multiracial and multiethnic elite that is replacing it. In the conditions of the competitive struggle for survival, the opportunities for Russian-American dialogue, which for most of the existence of our countries was in the mainstream of interstate relations, and not within the framework of inter-elite communications, have sharply narrowed.

Neighborly Surveillance: The Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission and the Development of a Post-Jim Crow Ideological Apparatus

The relations of production in Deep South regions like the Mississippi Delta require a high degree of control over race and class configurations. While the overt, de jure White supremacy that marked the post-Reconstruction era allowed for effective repression of dissent, the promise of federal intervention and grassroots organizing during the years of the civil rights movement required White elites to recalibrate methods of control. By integrating theories of racialization of space, internal colonialism, and Althusser’s (2006) notion of the ideological state apparatus, I suggest that this transition from overt to implicit control was accomplished by creating a culture of neighborly surveillance in which everyday Whites were deputized to surveil and report on civil rights organizing at the grassroots level. By neighborly surveillance, I refer to surveillance between and amongst private citizens enacted outside the purview of the formal state but in the interest of the powerful elite who control the state. I document this process through analysis of the archives of the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission, an official state agency tasked with spying on and counteracting civil rights activity. These records demonstrate the extent to which non-state actors assumed the roles originally exercised by the de jure Jim Crow regime. Beyond augmenting understandings of the civil rights movement-era US South, this article contributes analytical insights to social and ideological transitions in other post-colonial, post-authoritarian spatial contexts.

Potential of Tropically-Adapted Exotic Acid Tolerance White Maize Donor Lines in Sub-tropical Breeding Programmes for Low pH Adaptation

Low pH in soils is attributed as the main contributor to the low yields characteristic in maize production regions of Angola. Here, eight white-kernel acid soil tolerant donor lines (ASTDLs) sourced from CIMMYT-Colombia (testers) were crossed with eight white elite lines adapted to the mid-altitude climatic conditions from CIMMYT-Zimbabwe, in order to identify donor lines, which can be potential sources of acid tolerance genes in breeding programmes in Angola. The two groups of parents were crossed using a line by tester (L×T) mating design, yielding 47 crosses with sufficient seed, which were evaluated alongside eight acid tolerant commercial hybrids, during the 2014-16 cropping seasons at nine sites, representing acid and non-acid soils in Angola and Zimbabwe. Effects of general combining ability (GCA) due to lines and testers, as well as specific combining ability (SCA) on grain yield were significant (P < 0.05) under acid soils. From the CIMMYT-Zimbabwe breeding programme, inbred lines identified as ZW1, ZW4 and ZW5 together with the CIMMYT-Colombia ASTDLs (i.e., CW4 and CW8) seemed to be ideal parents for crosses that can do well under both the acid and non-acid soils. The best specific cross for acid soils was identified as ZW1 × CW8 (CH142512), whereas for non-acid soils, ZW3 × CW4 (CH142500) was identified. Interestingly, the cross ZW1 × CW8 was also observed as stable under both acid and non-acid soil conditions. Overall, data showed potential of exotic acid tolerance donor lines for enhancing low-pH adaptation in sub-tropical maize populations.

The colour of wealth concentration: the defence of economic privilege and multicultural ideology in postcolonial Mauritius

ABSTRACT Ideologies play a key role in the maintenance of inequality. Yet, as the case of the Franco-Mauritians, the white elite of Mauritius, shows, ideologies are also often challenged. Following struggles between elites and other social groups, ‘new’ ideologies may even emerge. A closer look at the transition from the colonial to postcolonial period in Mauritius provides relevant insights into the dynamics of such struggles, including how, in ambiguous ways, outcomes may foster the maintenance of inequality. It shows that the emergence of multiculturalism as an ideology enhanced (political) equality, yet also allowed Franco-Mauritians to maintain their wealth base

The Grotesque Aesthetics of Relationality: Sibylle Berg’s GRM Brainfuck (2019)

This article proposes that Sibylle Berg’s novel GRM Brainfuck (2019) expresses an ethics of relationality by showing the possibility, no matter how fleeting and precarious, of connections and collaborations, both physical and digital, between individuals and groups in the epoch of neoliberal fundamentalism, rapidly developing Artificial Intelligence and ecological breakdown. Narrative indeterminacy lays the aesthetic foundations for Berg’s portrayal of precarious relationality on the margins of totalitarian society, and it also articulates difference. Using Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of the novel as a hybrid form and his concept of the carnivalesque, the article argues that Berg’s narrative discourse and grotesque depictions of the body articulate the young protagonists’ resistance against the white elite techno-patriarchy. Berg’s thematization of the underground music genre, grime, also plays into her carnivalesque tirade against the status quo. Ultimately, her portrayal of relationality explores possibilities of human-machine kinship, even as the novel catastrophizes technological singularity. GRM Brainfuck is thus a form of cyborg writing, in Donna Haraway’s sense, that manifests in the carnivalesque narrative form.

“The Way It Is”: Land Preservation and the Culture of White Wealth in Lyme, Connecticut

Abstract: This essay is a critical folklore study of the culture of White wealth and its impact upon land preservation practices in the town of Lyme, Connecticut. On the one hand, it seeks to provide an example of research into White elite culture that Anand Prahlad recently called for in folklore studies. On the other hand, it is a contemporizing of research conducted in Connecticut in the 1950s by sociologist Frank Lee, and a contribution to allied scholarship that addresses problematic land preservation practices and their relation to “soft” racism. This article focuses especially on the public statements of the Lyme Democratic Town Committee and the Lyme Land Conservation Trust, arguing that such expressions should be considered viable forms of folklore. I provide an immanent critique of both organizations and criticize their failure and lack of accountability to perform values they publicly declare as essential to their core mission. I further critically analyze a specific case study that unfolded in 2021 in Lyme concerning open space. Although a study of folklore, this essay is composed with the non-specialist in mind and encourages organizations dedicated to social justice and equity to foster increased collaboration with folklorists.

The Eastern Cape and East London: African Protest and the Historical Context of Bloody Sunday 1952

This concluding overview explores themes which provide background to the four articles in the part special issue on popular protest in the Eastern Cape, with a special focus on East London. As these articles demonstrate, East London became the site of some of the most explosive urban popular protest in South Africa from 1950 to 1952. First, we discuss distinctive features of Eastern Cape African history over the long term. Society in the Eastern Cape was shaped by a particularly violent and protracted colonial conquest, lasting a century, but also by an early and widely dispersed missionary presence and relatively incorporative franchise system. Both left deep legacies. Second, we focus on East London, and some social characteristics that underlay the protests of the 1950s. Despite control by an anglophone white elite, the City Council was strongly committed to segregation and conditions in the ‘locations’ were among the worst in South Africa. This helped to radicalise African urban communities who also united to a degree behind Africanist, rather than class or worker-based, ideas and rhetoric. Third, we discuss participation by women in movements of popular protest in the Eastern Cape, focusing on both rural and urban contexts. Women were deeply engaged in two periods of militant mobilisation in East London: from 1929 to 1931, led by the Independent Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union (IICU) and 1950 to 1952, led by the ANC Youth League. The relationship between political radicalism and spiritual renewal is also briefly discussed. This overview suggests that all three of these historical processes shaped the ideas, patterns, and radicalism of popular protest in early 1950s East London.

Sonic Domination and the Politics of Race in Southern Antebellum Hymnody

AbstractReligious music served a political function in the southern United States during the antebellum period. This article examines catechisms and hymnbooks used by white evangelical missionaries and slaveowners in the antebellum South, arguing that the planter elite deployed hymns as a medium to assert white supremacy. The term sonic domination identifies processes whereby sound functioned as a social tool to maintain discipline and order among the enslaved population. Black and white people sang hymns in church, at interracial revivals, and during civic services; they were also heard on bells and cited in poetry. English texts and tunes included in slave catechisms and white portrayals of Black singing highlight the role of evangelical hymns in maintaining plantation order in the Old South. At the same time, enslaved Black Christians found creative ways to circumvent the oppressive power of the white elite through song. African Americans employed English hymns in their own religious rituals and used them to convey hidden meanings on the plantation. Both genres, which interacted and ultimately influenced each other, contributed to an eventual codification of American evangelical hymnody.

Free Black Witnesses in the Antebellum Upper South

AbstractWhile every slave state except Louisiana limited free Black testimony in cases involving whites, and most barred it completely, several jurisdictions with slavery, including three in the Upper South—Delaware, Maryland, and D.C.—allowed at least some free Black testimony in cases involving whites at least some of the time. Historians and legal scholars have largely overlooked the phenomenon of free Black testimony in the South, outside of Louisiana. In this article, I argue that courts in the Upper South allowed some free Black testimony in cases involving whites in part because allowing (limited) Black testimony enabled courts to access the truth (slightly) more freely, thereby increasing the law's legitimacy. The exceptions to the general bar against Black testimony in cases involving whites also demonstrate the diversity of legal trends in the antebellum Upper South. In Maryland, the space for free Black testimony shrank. In D.C. and Delaware, it grew. But Southerners long contested the relationship between race and law. Competing pressures to administer a well-functioning legal system and to maintain racial hierarchy exerted force on the white elite. Southern elites, even before the great convulsion of the Civil War, sometimes divided on how best to administer a white supremacist legal regime.

Reproducing a White Elite: The Chief Officers’ ‘Club’ in the London Metropolitan Police Service

This article focuses on the London Metropolitan Police Service, an organization charged with being institutionally racist. It asks why the percentage of black officers in senior positions remains so low, despite explicit formal attempts to change this situation. Rather than concentrating on the factors holding back the recruitment and promotion of black officers, the article examines how senior white officers managed their career journey. Through in-depth interviews with senior officers, the authors develop the notion of ‘social network volition’, linking to sociological literatures on race, social networks and elites in work and organizations. The agency of a ‘club’, composed of white senior officers, performs social network volition, defined as an invisible guiding hand that identifies, pursues, advises and sponsors white officers who fit the existing leadership composition. The implications of the article underline the need to make explicit the informal supports that reproduce whiteness while upholding the myth of merit.

Caracas Is Not Paris: The Moderate Modernity of Mestizaje in Teresa de la Parra’s Ifigenia (1924)

Abstract: Through her epistolary correspondence and her novel Ifigenia 1924, Teresa de la Parra (1889–1936) questions racial stratification systems reminiscent of colonial times and still present in twentieth-century Venezuela. Parra establishes the malleability of racial categories through a moderate racial discourse that intends to re-classify whiteness as the sole marker of economic wealth. Via its young and naïve protagonist, Ifigenia depicts how white elites reluctantly adapted to modernity’s significant socioeconomic changes, leaving previous racial stratification systems—and their whitening projects—obsolete. Parra’s moderate approach to race has been consistently overlooked by numerous scholars who often focus on Ifigenia ’s feminine discourse. However, Parra’s novel thrives in the nuanced juxtaposition between racial purity and mestizaje that mirrors the tension between Paris and Caracas as opposing geographical and racial spaces. Parra’s nuanced discourse reveals a moderate racial theory that underscores the importance of controlled racial mixing and intends to negotiate between a European ideal of racial purity and a Venezuelan mestizo reality at the turn of the twentieth century. Ultimately, her protagonist willingly sacrifices herself for the continuation of a national narrative where modernity has enforced an acceptance of mestizaje .

Front and back cover caption, volume 39 issue 3

Front and back cover caption, volume 39 issue 3ROBOTIC BUDDHIST FUNERAL PRIESTSHumanoid robot ‘Pepper’, produced by SoftBank Robotics, debuts to great fanfare in 2017 in its new role as a Buddhist priest and funeral attendant at ENDEX, the Japanese funeral and cemetery industry convention. Alongside AR grave design programs, eco‐urns and ash jewellery, Pepper is one of many striking, experimental products and services aimed at reinvigorating and reinventing Japan's ‘ending industry’.In a country with a rapidly aging population, Japan is facing a crisis in how to handle death. Traditional Buddhist funeral rites are becoming increasingly expensive and difficult to find, and many families are looking for new ways to say goodbye to their loved ones.One possible solution is the use of robotic Buddhist priests. These robots are programmed to chant sutras, lead prayers and perform other traditional funeral rituals. They are also much cheaper than human priests, making them an attractive option for families on a budget.The use of robotic priests is still in its early stages, but it has the potential to revolutionize the way death is handled in Japan. By providing a more affordable and accessible option for funeral services, robots could help to ensure that everyone has a dignified send‐off, regardless of their financial situation.These interventions respond to the weakening of traditional Buddhist death rites and the socio‐religious structures that once supported them.THE FIRST BLACK STUDENT IN ANTHROPOLOGYJames Arthur Harley (1873‐1943), a talented polymath with a degree from Harvard University, arrived in Edwardian England in 1907 and enrolled in the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford to pursue a Diploma in Anthropology. Unfortunately, the curriculum at the time perpetuated racist ideologies that portrayed and thought of black people as intellectually inferior, exotic, sub‐species, sub‐human – savage. However, Harley's presence at Britain's world‐renowned university, a bastion of white elite privilege, prestige and class, was not unique.Thirty‐four years earlier in 1873, Christian Frederick Cole (1853‐1885) from Sierra Leone became the university's first black scholar when he matriculated at University College, aged 21, to read for an honours degree in Classical Moderations, going on to achieve the august status of Britain's first black barrister.Harley, an Antiguan scholar, completed the course and became the first black man to earn the diploma. In so doing, he, like many black scholars at the University of Oxford, from Alain LeRoy Locke (1885‐1954), the first black Rhodes scholar, later known as the father of the Harlem Renaissance, to Kofoworola Moore (1913‐2002), the first black woman to receive a degree in 1932, all obliterated the preconceived racist‐held ideologies with their achievements and later contributions.Anthropology continuously evolves and adapts to the changes humans experience in this world. Through the presence of Harley and his fellow pioneers in these institutions, we see how they gradually evolve and reframe how black students are viewed. These early students were change agents and perhaps instigators of decolonized curricula and forged a path for other black students to follow.

La colonialidad del Espíritu Santo en el pentecostalismo brasileño

This dossier aims to point out the coloniality of Holy Spirit, an integral person of the Divine Trinity, in current Brazilian Pentecostalism, in favor of whiteness in the sphere of power. The research points out that there is a process of invisibilization and erasure that does not allow the rise of black religious agents in Pentecostal communities, even though these religious communities are mostly formed by black people and located in the peripheries. The text seeks to reflect on the theme going through the roots of the foundation of Brazilian Pentecostalism and reaching the present day. We observe similarities with colonial Catholicism when the groups that hold power in Pentecostalism begin to use practices that privilege a white elite group. In this sense, we present broader aspects, addressing different points of view and possibilities to understand the different approaches to the coloniality of Holy Spirit in Brazilian Pentecostalism. Here, we work with the perspective of the Brazilian religious matrix absorbed by the Pentecostal movement and, furthermore, we work on aspects of the existing power frontiers between pastors from the peripheries against the superiority of pastors who are presidents of the Assemblies of God.

Universities, imperialism and the collective work ahead.

Universities, imperialism and the collective work ahead.

Evaluation of agronomic and grain yield of elite hybrids maize in south-western Nigeria

The poor grain yield of maize obtained among Nigeria small holder farmers has been an issue leading to the continuous development of maize genotypes with the aim of improving yield in the farmers’ in order to improve the household income. Evaluation of the agronomic and grain yield of some of th4 elite hybrids maize was conducted with the aim to determine their performance in order to ascertain their suitability for the south-western agro-ecology of Nigeria. Three elites hybrid maize genotypes groups made up of 30 entries of early white and yellow maize (Elite 1), 36 entries of early white maize, 36 entries of late/intermediate maturing (Elite 3) and 24 entries of open pollinated (OPV) were evaluated at the teaching and research farm of Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria in two late cropping seasons of 2019 to 2020. The treatments were laid out in a randomized incomplete block design (lattice design) with three replications in each season. Data were obtained on agronomic (plant height, ear height, stem lodge, root lodge plant aspect, ear aspect and husk cover), grain yield and yield components (ear length, ear girth, number of kernel rows per ear and number of kernels per row). It was noted that 6 entries from early maturing white and yellow elites (Elite 1), two from early maturing white elites (Elite 2), one from late/ intermediate elites (Elite 3) and one from the open pollinated varieties (OPV) genotypes showed superior agronomic character while one of Elite 1 and 9 of Elite 2 genotypes showed most superior yield character across seasons. Genotypes EWH114(E1), EWH110(E1), EYTWH-9(E2) were observed to be stable and showed superior performance in agronomic character and grain yield. These genotypes are to be advocated for growth and grain yield.

인류세의 글쓰기

By situating “transpacific” as a critical space that allows oceanic exchange between Japan and Canada, the past and the present, and human and nonhuman, this essay critically examines how Ozeki’s third novel, A Tale for the Time Being (2013), helps us apprehend “slow violence,” one that is hard to see or feel due to the workings of time and distant locations. While mainstream Anthropocene discourse has tended to focus more on the perspectives of white elites, writers and scientists based in the Global North, Ozeki’s novel draws the reader’s attention to the fluidity of oceanic movements and intentionally blurs the boundaries between human history and environmental history, especially the links between nuclear bombing in Japan during the World War II and the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in 2011, in order to emphasize a complex crisis for both human and nonhuman on a planetary scale. Building on what Elizabeth DeLoughrey terms “the oceanic turn” in literatary studies, I argue that Ozeki’s A Tale for the Time Being challenges and works to decolonize the discourses of the Anthropocene and thus invites us to imagine more just and sustainable environmental futures for the more-than-human world.

“She Must Be Experimental, Resourceful, and Have Sympathetic Understanding”: toxic white femininities as a Persona and Performance in School Social Work

In this paper, we theorize toxic white femininities as a performance and persona in school social work. To develop the theory and analytic tool of “toxic white femininities,” we used critical discourse analysis to analyze school social work professional association materials from 1906 to 1936. Our analysis isolated three performances of toxic white femininities in early 1900s school social work: (1) the exclusionary social and material gains of “her” professionalization, (2) “her” reinforcement of racial-gender-class hierarchies, and (3) “her” strategic use of helper identity to mask social control. We trace how these performances coalesced into a collective professional persona, operating beyond the scope of individual practitioners. This persona institutionalized a racialized-gendered professional identity, presented in the archives as a universal “she”—white, middle class, and feminine. With private funding from white elites in the early 20th century, school social workers—constructed discursively as white women—would become the “right” profession to shape the lives of young people and guard the privileges of whiteness. We close with a discussion of “her” long shadow and contemporary performances, outlying the ways toxic white femininities operate as a form of incremental violence impacting the profession and social services.

『퀀텀 라이프』를 통해 본 흑인 지식인의 성장과 학교 교육

This article attempts to examine the effects of Du Bois’ “Double-Consciousness” and American educational systems on African-American man by analyzing Hakeem Oluseyi’s A Quantum Life. Through this African-American physicist’s autobiography, we could specifically learn about life of poverty and the violence, along with dissolution of family which he had to go through. Racism in American society is ubiquitous and has detrimental effect on black people’s life. Du Bois has explained how African Americans suffer from “Double-Consciousness,” inward “twoness,” experienced by African-Americans in a white-dominated society. Considering that human’s identity forms at the junction of mutual interaction with others, Du Bois’ “Double-Consciousness” could be regarded as the condition of existence not only of African-Americans but of the humanity as a whole. However, African American’s “Double-Consciousness” is problematic in that the norms in their society have a deadly effect on them. The institutional education helped Hakeem to overcome self-loathing or sense of skepticism and become a physicist. The normative cultural assets passed down by white elites at his school provided Hakeem with the opportunity to work and study at the best physics educational institutions. Through Hakeem’s story, we can confirm that black people in the United States need special support, both tangible and intangible, to overcome the detrimental effect of racism on them.

Whose Good Death? Valuation and Standardization as Mechanisms of Inequality in Hospitals.

Although most clinicians have come to perceive invasive life-sustaining treatments as overly aggressive at the end of life, some of the public and greater proportions of some socially disadvantaged groups have not. Drawing on 1,500+ hours of observation in four intensive care units and 69 interviews with physicians and patients' family members, I find inequality occurs through two mechanisms complementary to the cultural health capital and fundamental causes explanations prevalent in existing health disparities literature: in valuation, as the attitudes and values of the socially disadvantaged are challenged and ignored, and in standardization, as the outcomes preferred by less advantaged groups are defined as inappropriate and made harder to obtain by the informal and formal practices and policies of racialized organizations. I argue inequality is produced in part because wealthier and White elites shape institutional preferences and practices and, therefore, institutions and clinical standards to reflect their cultural tastes.

State of the Field: A New Historiography for the Old South? Slavery and Capitalism, White Elites and Enslaved Blacks

State of the Field: A New Historiography for the Old South?Slavery and Capitalism, White Elites and Enslaved Blacks Lacy Ford (bio) For roughly a decade, historians’ understanding of the antebellum American South has been increasingly influenced by a new burst of scholarship collectively labelled “The New History of Capitalism.” Scholars leading the argument for the New History of Capitalism (NHC) contend with considerable, but sometimes reckless, vigor that the slaveholding South stood on the driving edge of the larger capitalist and imperialist project of the nineteenth century. There is much in these works to recommend an emphasis on capitalism and imperialism as creators of the Old South, certainly as it existed in the late antebellum era, and the region played a large role in the evolution of those two projects. But the core, or rather the heart, of the NHC’s argument places cotton and slavery together as the dominant driving force behind the expansion of both capitalism and imperialism in the nineteenth century world. Yet there are also scholarly cautions that must be acknowledged and even damaging misconceptions and erroneous assumptions that promise to limit the NHC’s influence on the historiography of the Old South over the long term. This new corpus of scholarship characterizes southern slaveholders as acquisitive, expansionist, and possessing a broad ambition for power reaching well beyond their control of enslaved Black people. Collectively, the new NHC literature attempts to radically transform our understanding of the slaveholders’ role in furthering capitalist and imperial designs, not only in the American South but also in other parts of the world. In the NHC’s view, as the South’s slaveholding elite committed itself to pursuing territorial expansion and extending slavery, its aspirations moved beyond mastery and profit toward the building of an empire for cotton and the creation of a truly global economy sustained to a large degree by cotton production in the American South.1 This essay examines the NHC corpus, acknowledging its value, especially as a debating point, but also probes its weaknesses as revealed by existing and contemporary scholarship. [End Page 442] An earlier work, Adam Rothman’s Slave Country: American Expansion and the Origins of the Deep South (2005), anticipated the coming turn in antebellum southern historiography by emphasizing the slaveholders’ seemingly unquenchable desire for territorial expansion and the acquisition of more and more enslaved Black people, but this book did not present deep South slaveholders as creators of the international capitalist enterprise. According to Rothman, Southern slaveholders and aspiring slaveholders rushed into the old Southwest (Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana), seeking more land and more enslaved labor (whether via the illegal international slave trade, the legal domestic trade, or in-migration from the upper South and older cotton states). Rothman embraced the notion that the slaveholders of the lower South had embarked upon an imperialist endeavor to establish an ever-growing empire for cotton centered in the lower South.2 Yet at the same time, as one reviewer noted, Rothman was “sensitive to the hundreds and even thousands of individual decisions involved in making the old Southwest a slave country.”3 Those decisions included choices by white people about whether to buy or sell slaves, and decisions by the enslaved over whether or not to run away from a new master in an attempt to preserve a family—and many other decisions large and small made by both slaveholders and the enslaved. Ultimately this sea of decisions led the region’s slaveholders to establish the lower South as a critical plantation periphery supplying needed raw material for the core of the world’s emerging capitalist economy. But the region remained largely on the margins of the industrial revolution that it sustained, Rothman argued, while its planter elite nonetheless developed and retained close connections with the core. The expansionist slaveholders built a new cotton empire in the old Southwest, but it was far less clear that these slaveholders had embarked upon a capitalist project for cotton to drive the world economy. On balance, Rothman’s book endorsed the notion that slaveholders led an expansionist, even imperialist, regime in terms of controlling cotton lands, but it did not endorse the idea that Southern slaveholders...