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Reason
Reason
David T. Beito

Oppression in the South Was Not an Expression of Freedom

Freedom's Dominion: A Saga of White Resistance to Federal Power, by Jefferson Cowie, Basic Books, 512 pages, $35

Jefferson Cowie is a prodigious researcher who often shows sensitivity to historical complexities, and his narrative skills shine. The Vanderbilt historian's latest book, Freedom's Dominion, is readable and often provocative. But it superimposes a dubious thesis about Southern history over the facts, arguing that "land dispossession, slavery, power, and oppression do not stand in contrast to freedom—they are expressions of it."

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