Southern Dialectic

...And where can his cherished liberties, his admirable defense of the rights of his opponents, his strong stand for academic freedom really be upheld if not in the Umted States, "the model country," Marx wrote, 'of the democratic swindle...

...Southern Dialectic In Red and Black: Marxian Explorations in Southern and Afro-American History By Eugene D Genovese Pantheon 435 pp $10 00 Reviewed by Hans L. Trefousse Brooklyn College, City Untveisity of New York EUGENE D. GENOVESE is one of this country's most controversial historians Made famous as the target of Right-wing attacks at Rutgers College?Rid Rutgers of Reds" was the slogan coined against him?he later came under fire from the New Left But he has stood his ground, kept his sense of humor, and continued his incisive scholarship In Red and Black is a collection of his articles, essays and reviews written during the past five years Differing widely in content, they nevertheless reflect his major themes —that a Marxist approach to history is essential, that Marxism must not be confused with economic determinism and that class struggle is the key to Marxian dialectic, piovided that "class" is not defined in narrowly economic terms "I have gambled,' Genovese says disarmingly in the Introduction, "that anyone willing to read a collection of loosely connected, previously published essays will stand for anything " He may be right, dubious as most of his propositions are, readers who have the patience to rummage through the essays will be rewarded One of the historical questions Genovese tackles astutely is what place blacks occupy in American culture Too sophisticated to mouth the slogans of militant separatists, he believes "blacks have had a special history with a profoundly national-cultural dimension Afro-Americans have withm their history the elements of a distinct nationality at the same time that they have participated in and contributed immensely to a common American nationality " Yet to conclude from this thesis, 4 as Genovese does, that anything but full integration will solve the problems ot race in America seems to me at variance with his own ideology The main thrust ot black Americans has always been toward integration, separatist movements were merely exceptions to the rule Discussing the institution of slavery, Genovese calls for a reassessment of the role of the much-abused household servants and slave dnveis His shrewd observation that custom rather than law determined the living conditions of most slaves, and that slave families had a surprising degree of stability, are needed correctives to prevalent misconceptions Similarly, he advocates comparative studies of slave systems, particularly the American and Brazilian models, and correctly points out the early prohibition against foreign slave trade in the U S But here the detriments of collecting previously written essays become most noticeable Since Carl Degler's valuable work on North and Latin American slavery appeared after the initial publication of Genovese's articles, many of them are now dated It would be impossible to analyze in detail all of Genovese's disputes with other writers His admiration for Ulrich B Phillips, the pioneer historian of the "peculiar institution" of slavery, is well known, while acknowledging Phillips' racism, he credits him with unusual insight That he has included laudatory essays on non-Marxists like David Potter and C Vann Woodward is also commendable, as is his enlightening defense of William Styron's The Confessions of Nat Turner from the charge of bias On the other hand, an essay criticizing Thomas Hovmg's ill-fated exhibition, "Harlem on My Mind," at New York's Metropolitan Museum and an exchange on relativism with Irwin Unger are of little merit Genovese's opinions have frequently riled those who disagree with him, but the lesrtltmg debates do not make for absorbing reading Probably the most controversial aspect of In Red and Black is Genovese's insistence that Marxism does not involve economic determinism Though he freely admits that Marx and Engels defined class m terms of a group's particular relationship to the means of production, he feels this definition "embraces the full range of human experience in its manifold political, social, economic, and cultural manifestations " A Marxist with such a point of view does not differ significantly from his non-Marxist colleagues He may believe in the necessity of revolution and in an inexorable dialectic explaining all history, but otherwise he can pursue his researches untram-meled by preconceptions Thus, for example, Genovese can boldly assert that the lower classes have no monopoly on virtue, a truth that never unsettled non-Marxists I am tempted, however, to ask Genovese whether it is possible that the trouble lies not in historians' varying interpretations of Marxism, but in Marxism itself Is there really a dialectic which enables us to understand history...