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Eugene D. Genovese: Historian of Slavery

I am a great admirer of Eugene D. Genovese’s historical scholarship. Because this is not now a fashionable assertion, I would like to take this opportunity to consider anew Genovese’s extraordinary contribution to the study of slavery and the Old South. First, some history. A young Genovese came to public attention in 1965, in part for publishing a pathbreaking collection of essays, The Political Economy of Slavery, but more for proclaiming that he hoped the “Vietcong” (the widely used American nickname for the National Liberation Front) would come to power in Vietnam, for which Richard Nixon, along with New Jersey’s Republican gubernatorial candidate and a number of state legislators, tried to have him fired from his position as assistant professor of history at Rutgers University. I begin with this incident because although Genovese’s most important contribution has been as a historian of slavery, he has also had a major impact on the historical profession—and on academia in general—as an outspoken Marxist. Being a radical professor may not seem especially noteworthy today, but it was in the “liberal” 1960s, when professing leftwing views was enough to put one’s career in jeopardy. (Other leftist scholars, such as Herbert Aptheker and Philip Foner, were unable to secure academic positions at all.) As much as any other one individual, I think, Genovese helped change this situation, making it possible for an outspoken radical to enter the mainstream of the American historical profession.1 Genovese’s academic success stemmed in part from the brilliance of his work, which could simply not be ignored, but it also reflected the fact that from the very beginning, his approach was distinguished by at least three interrelated character-