The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 84, July 1980 - April, 1981 Page: 471

Book Reviews

cessful commission merchant. Although he occasionally returned to
visit in Virginia, he remained an unreconstructed rebel to the end.
Professor Shingleton has performed his task admirably. Although he
occasionally wanders into a general discussion of events that do not
deal directly with his subject, the main thrust of the narrative is han-
dled well. Even though Wood was, after all, a secondary rather than a
major historical figure, Shingleton's account tells us much about ne-
glected parts of the war, such as the naval raids along the Carolina
coast. Too, Shingleton's description of Davis's capture, based largely
upon Wood's diary, provides additional insights into the final days of
the Confederacy.
The book is well designed with excellent maps, clear illustrations, a
helpful bibliographic note, and a satisfactory index.
Lamar University RALPH A. WOOSTER
Slavery Remembered: A Record of Twentieth-Century Slave Narra-
tives. By Paul D. Escott. (Chapel Hill: University of North Caro-
lina Press, 1979. Pp. xv+ 22. Preface, introduction, illustrations,
tables, afterword, appendices, bibliography, index. Paperback, $7;
hardback, $12.50.)
Slavery has been one of the most hotly debated and most written-
about topics in American history. From the work of Ulrich B. Phillips
and his students to Kenneth M. Stampp and Stanley M. Elkins, to the
statistical historians like Robert W. Fogel, to the sweeping studies of
Eugene D. Genovese, Herbert G. Gutman, and David Brion Davis,
slavery has been researched and reinterpreted, with changes in inter-
pretation conforming generally to the "transformations of contem-
porary race relations" (p. 177), according to Paul D. Escott, assistant
professor of history at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
One of the primary changes that has come with the easing of racial
tensions is an alteration in the historian's attitude toward the testimony
of the slaves themselves as represented in various narratives.
The narratives are a group of oral statements gathered by the Fed-
eral Writers' Project during the 193os. There are similar documents at
Fisk University, in an article by John B. Cade in The Journal of
Negro History (July, 1935), and in the possession of Lawrence D. Red-
dick, who gathered his interviews in Kentucky and Indiana. Historians
initially disregarded these statements because of distrust of the ex-

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