The Slave Power Conspiracy and the Paranoid Style

by David Brion Davis

The material in this book represents in large part lectures delivered at the invitation of the faculty and trustees of the Union Theological Seminary, Richmond, Virginia, on the James Sprunt foundation. For publication, these lectures were revised and in some cases amplified. The Peak of Catholic Thomas of Torquemada; The Peak of Protestant John Calvin; The Victim of Protestant Michael Servetus; The Sebastien Castellio; The Heretic as David Joris; The Heretic as Bernadino Ochino; The Bard of Speech John Milton; The Roger Williams; Apologist for the Act of John Locke.

Genres: History

112 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1970

About the author

David Brion Davis was an American historian and authority on slavery and abolition in the Western world. He was the Sterling Professor of History Emeritus at Yale University, and founder and Director Emeritus of Yale’s Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition. He was a foremost intellectual and cultural historian. The author and editor of 17 books, and frequent contributor to The New York Review of Books, Davis played a principal role in explaining the latest historiography to a broad audience. His books emphasized religious and ideological links among material conditions, political interests, and new political values.

Reviews

[Bryan Alexander · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good, short (<90 pages) book about conspiracy theories around slavery in 19th century America. Davis does a fine job of teasing out the contours of such stories.

Obviously a reader in 2023 can reflect on parallels with today's various conspiracies, but I was pleasantly surprised to see the author make connections to his time, the 1960s. He finds echoes in contemporary anticommunism, which looked convincing to me.

How dated is this? I don't know enough about American historiography to tell.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

shows how grand conspiracy theories grew up in the South and in the
North in the antebellum period. A big unified abolitionist plot in
the North (so thought many Southerners). A big unified plot to spread
slavery throughout the nation (so thought many Northerners).