Ralph Luker at Cliopatria calls our attention to a Books and Culture podcast in which John Wilson, editor of B&C, discusses Eugene Genovese’s new book, Miss Betsey: A Memoir of Marriage. Genovese’s book reflects on his marriage to the late Elizabeth Fox-Genovese. This was a marriage between a working class Marxist scholar who is one of our leading historians of slavery and southern culture (Eugene) and a pioneer in the field of women’s studies and a leading historian of the plantation south (Elizabeth). Elizabeth converted to Catholicism in 1995 and Eugene followed in 1996. (Check out Elizabeth’s conversion narrative published in the April 2000 edition of First Things). In 2008 the Genoveses published their magnum opus together: Slavery in White and Black.
Just the other day I was telling my Civil War course about Eugene Genovese’s work, particularly his books on the southern agrarian tradition’s critique of market capitalism.
I am looking forward to reading this book.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.