The Problem of Class and the Problem of Antislavery

The essays in this book offer a series of opinions and explanations for the simultaneous rise of antislavery and the development of capitalism. Beginning with David Brion Davis’s apparently expansive volume, The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, John Ashworth and Thomas Haskell have written articles that critique Davis and offer new interpretations of this phenomenon, using evidence from both Britain and the United States. Over the course of the historians’ progression of articles in this book, arguments are refined and clarified. As Bender suggests in his introduction, this process suggests more common ground among its authors than their initial work might have suggested. I am unsure whether this phenomenon represents a process toward consensus, or rather a process of moving from rather grand theses toward more conservative—and less controvertible—arguments. Each author (particularly Davis and Haskell, who have the most dialogue with one another) would have us believe that he is merely refining and clarifying his point, while his colleague has entirely backed down.

 

There is certainly plenty of room for discussion about the relative merits of each author and each article published here. Bender, Ashworth, Davis, and Haskell have started the conversation for us, and done so with clear and well-researched arguments. This sets the stage for a conversation in class that brings in, as Lester suggested, our earlier readings and conversations.

 

Beyond simply using these articles as tools for our own understanding of class and antislavery, this book is useful in its explicit debate about the reality and nuance of class as a historical lens of analysis. Readings for this class until this book have examined class in varying degrees, but The Antislavery Debate provides an insight into the way class is weighed, considered, and debated as a tool of analysis. These authors also illustrate for us some of the problems of class, notably its many potential definitions. Haskell, who seemed at first to use the term “market” off-handedly and without definition, tries to defend this use in his third article, “Convention and Hegemonic Interest in the Debate over Antislavery.” By stating that “the market [has] multiple and contradictory effects that deny any sort of reconciliation,” (236), Haskell risks rendering the concept of the market too large to be meaningful. On the other hand, Ashworth’s focus on wage labor suggests an inexplicably narrow aspect of class and capitalism.

 

This book offers an important chance to observe the way historians choose to employ class, cognitive changes, and other factors in their analysis. In addition to its insight on the specific questions of class and its merit, I hope that this book will be a springboard for us in discussing the process of historical research, which could be a helpful context as we continue to develop our own research projects. Like these authors, we are responsible for choosing theoretical frameworks and evidence to employ, along with choosing more theoretical or data-based approaches. There is a transparency about this process for historians in The Antislavery Debate that I think can be a valuable tool in our own research and conversations. 

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