This weighty book intends to "tell the story of slave life as carefully and accurately as possible." Less given over to theoretical and topical polemic than Genovese's earlier works on Southern slavery, it is by no means a catalogue. It amplifies Genovese's stress on the humanity slaves were able to preserve through de facto accommodations on the part of both slave and master, through the reciprocal play of "elementary human reactions" across class and color lines, and through the slaves' "strong sense of stewardship" for one another. This is a necessary transcendence of many other historians' dehumanizing view of both slaves and slaveholders, and to it Genovese brings his intellectual expansiveness and depth of feeling as he further documents key points featured in The World the Slaveholders Made (1969) and The Red and the Black (1972): the resourcefulness and egalitarianism of many house servants, the protective, responsible character of many black drivers, the prevalence of family stability and the nourishment Christianity afforded against degradation. Some critics will argue persuasively that Genovese has not done justice to southern slavery's deprivation, brutality and murder. As a matter of page-by-page arithmetic, Genovese certainly places more weight on young folks' play by the cabin door than on "evidence of widespread dirt-eating." The question - raised very differently by Fogel and Engerman in Time on the Cross (KR, p. 220), whose econometric inferences crosshatch Genovese's view - is one of method and concept in shaping the evidence. The subject will be pursued in debates, and anyone concerned with human development should read Genovese's book to knowledgeably participate.

吉诺维斯（Eugene D．Genovese，1930— ) 美国历史学家。生于布鲁克林工人家庭。1959年获哥伦比亚大学哲学博士学位。1963—1967年任拉特格斯大学副教授，因积极参加学生运动、反战运动并公开为“越共”辩护而被解聘。1967年被迫离开美国，前往加拿大蒙特利尔任乔治·威廉斯大学教授。1969年起任罗彻斯特大学历史学教授。1978年当选美国历史学家组织主席，同年创刊《马克思主义展望》，并担任主编。专心致志于美国奴隶制研究，认为马克思主义关于经济基础决定上层建筑的原理是进行奴隶制研究的理论工具。作品受新左派运动影响，反对机械决定论，重视思想文化因素，并试图用葛兰西的“霸权”概念来解释美国南方奴隶制，但近期作品逐渐表现出重视阶级斗争的倾向。主要著作有：《奴隶制政治经济学：南方奴隶制经济与社会研究》、《奴隶主创造的世界》、《在红与黑里：对南方和非洲裔美国人历史的解释》、《约旦河奔腾不息：奴隶创造的世界》、《从造反到革命：非洲裔美国奴隶在现代世界的暴动》、《商业资本的果实：资本主义上升和发展时期的奴隶制和资产阶级财富》。