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A prize-winning historian chronicles the long-running clash between white people and federal authority by focusing on Barbour County, Alabama and its history of fighting Reconstruction, integration, and the New Deal.
About the author
Jefferson Cowie holds the James G. Stahlman chair in history at Vanderbilt University. He is the author of three books, including
Stayin’ Alive: The 1970s and the Last Days of the Working Class, and his work has appeared in numerous outlets including
Time, the
New York Times,
Foreign Affairs, and
Politico. He lives in Nashville, Tennessee.
Summary
WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE IN HISTORY
An "important, deeply affecting—and regrettably relevant" (New York Times) chronicle of a sinister idea of freedom: white Americans’ freedom to oppress others and their fight against the government that got in their way.
American freedom is typically associated with the fight of the oppressed for a better world. But for centuries, whenever the federal government intervened on behalf of nonwhite people, many white Americans fought back in the name of freedom—their freedom to dominate others.
In Freedom’s Dominion, historian Jefferson Cowie traces this complex saga by focusing on a quintessentially American place: Barbour County, Alabama, the ancestral home of political firebrand George Wallace. In a land shaped by settler colonialism and chattel slavery, white people weaponized freedom to seize Native lands, champion secession, overthrow Reconstruction, question the New Deal, and fight against the civil rights movement. A riveting history of the long-running clash between white people and federal authority, this book radically shifts our understanding of what freedom means in America.
Foreword
A prize-winning historian chronicles a sinister idea of freedom: white Americans' freedom to oppress people of color
