Freedom's Dominion: A Saga of White Resistance to Federal Power (Pulitzer Prize Winner)

Freedom's Dominion: A Saga of White Resistance to Federal Power (Pulitzer Prize Winner)

by Jefferson Cowie
Freedom's Dominion: A Saga of White Resistance to Federal Power (Pulitzer Prize Winner)

Freedom's Dominion: A Saga of White Resistance to Federal Power (Pulitzer Prize Winner)

by Jefferson Cowie

Hardcover

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Overview

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.  

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781541672802
Publisher: Basic Books
Publication date: 11/22/2022
Pages: 512
Sales rank: 63,399
Product dimensions: 5.50(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.70(d)

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 TimesForeign Affairs, and Politico. He lives in Nashville, Tennessee. 

Table of Contents

Introduction: George Wallace and American Freedom 1

Book 1 Land

1 Marshal Crawford's Orders 17

2 Land, Liberty, and Jackson 34

3 The Killing of Hardeman Owens 50

4 The Compromise of Francis Scott Key 65

5 Uprising 81

Book 2 Citizenship

6 Igniting a Wall of Fire 97

7 "Destroying Freedom and Liberty" 116

8 The Greeley Gamble and the Dueling Dual Legislatures of 1872 134

9 The White Line: Afternoon, Election Day 1874 152

10 The Fate of the Scalawag: Evening, Election Day 1874 170

Book 3 Federal Power in Repose

11 The Prison Mines 191

12 White Oligarchy as Jeffersonian Democracy 210

13 Lynching as an Act of Freedom 232

14 A New Deal for Southside? 250

15 The Bourbon from Barbour 270

Book 4 Democracy

16 The Fightin' Judge 289

17 The Albert Street Club 311

18 From Clayton to the Nation 326

19 The SCOPE of Freedom 348

20 The Vote Is Not Enough 367

21 The Northern Strategy 385

Conclusion 404

Acknowledgments 417

Photo Credits 423

Notes 425

Index 481

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