ABSTRACT
Eugene Dominick Genovese's book Roll, Jordan, Roll investigates the nature of the master–slave relationship in the US South from the founding of the nation until the Civil War. Roll, Jordan, Roll argues that the power of the slaveholders meant that their world view dominated society. Genovese argues for a more complex understanding of the relationship between master and slaves, according to which slaves did not passively accept their role but, rather, engaged in a relationship defined both by resistance and by accommodation with their masters. In the process, slaves were able to assert their humanity and to challenge the institution of slavery. Genovese used the concept of paternalism– a sort of institutionalized "parent–child" relationship, marked by an imbalance in status–to investigate slavery in the American South. Genovese accessed and examined a mass of archival material over ten years of research–a feat that historians of slavery are unlikely to reproduce.
