Slavery and Race in American Popular Culture (review)

360CIVIL WAR HISTORY contributions of blacks to Union victory. For the uninitiated reader there is much of value; this is not the case for the Civil War historian. Most of the monograph is a synthesis of other historians' research. Only in a few instances did this reviewer discover something new. There were also numerous typographical errors and Mays tended to repeat himself in the text. (See for example pp. 41-42.) Finally, the author omitted several works which could have been cited for the reader's further study. In discussing espionage and the collection of intelligence data (p. 73), Mays might have cited R. G. Mangrum's Route Step March (1980), which has a chapter on Marsena R. Patrick and the Bureau of Military Information. In discussing the organization of schools for the freedmen (p. 78), mention should be made of W. P. Vaughn's Schools for All (1974). Lastly, in detailing reconstruction in New Orleans after 1862 (p. 93), the author should note J. G. Dawson's Army Generals and Reconstruction: Louisiana 1862-1877 (1982). Overall, this volume does have a place in the classroom. It is a good resource and starting point for a more detailed, comprehensive study of the subject. Mays has produced the basic tools for the integration of black Americans and their contributions into the teaching unit on the Civil War. Robert G. Mancrum Howard Payne University Sfovery and Race in American Popular Culture. By William L. Van Deburg . (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1984). Pp. xiii, 263. $29.50 cloth; $12.50 paper.) William L. Van Deburg's study of images of slavery and race in American popular culture from 1619 to 1980 is a very interesting survey of an enormous body of information. He provides us with a summary and analysis of a significant sampling of novels, histories, poems, plays, films, and songs which span over three hundred fifty years of the AfroAmerican experience. But the lesson which he has learned from all of this is rather simple. Overall, whites have repeatedly portrayed slaves as "Uncle Toms," or as "feeble-willed noble savages," or as "comically musical minstrel figures," or as "dehumanized brutes." On the other hand, blacks have repeatedly responded with images of "slave achievement and invention," with images of "beauty inherent in blackness," with visions of black race consciousness and "white hypocrisy." Popular culture, as Van Deburg sees it, has provided the battlefield for a centuries-long race war of images which continues to the present. The only sign of hope in this otherwise bleak portrait is the narrowing of the gap between black and white images of slavery which began to appear in American universities during the 1960s. In response to Black Power ideology and the Black Studies movement, the mainstream of American BOOK REVIEWS361 scholarship slowly shifted away from the racist imagery which dominated its past. But Van Deburg believes that the transformation has not yet significantly spread beyond the academy; nor are there signs that it is about to do so. The simplicity of the story told by Van Deburg is both its great strength and weakness. The battle of popular images does not vary with time; 1660 is much like 1960. The images do not vary with place. North and South are remarkably similar. Variations in the media matter little. Poets and filmmakers, novelists and minstrel men are all basically the same. The only division of any consequence in this monolithic world is the division between black and white. There is much lost when nearly all variations are removed from our understanding of a human landscape. On the other hand, Van Deburg does offer us something well worth having: a clear, unambiguous restatement of the importance of race and racism as categories in American life. This is a useful reminder to historians perhaps overly impressed with the blows against racism repeatedly struck by historical writing of the last twenty years. Our writing has only touched the surface of the world. Kenneth S. Greenberc Suffolk University Civil War Recollections of James Lemuel Clark. By James Lemuel Clark. Edited with an introduction by L. D. Clark. (College Station, Texas: Texas A & M Press, 1984. Pp. 124. $12.50.) Eighteen years...