Explain one specific historical trend or event which supports genovese’s point of view.

Few historians have left their mark on a field as decisively as Eugene D. Genovese.

The shape of southern history, particularly slavery studies, would look rather

different without his substantial corpus. Debates in southern history

continue to be framed around the issues first raised or developed by Genovese

in his early work on the Old South and slavery. More than any other historian of

slavery, he has set the agenda for antebellum southern historiography and bears

responsibility for both its strengths and its limitations. Writing from the

standpoint of an odd ideological con- juncture—as a self-professed Marxist and

an unabashed admirer of southern slave- holders— Genovese’s Janus-faced

political loyalties, to use a metaphor he himself has employed, have shaped

his work. In this article, I will critically examine the import and influence of

his vast scholarship in nineteenth-century southern history, especially of hismost

significantbook,Roll,Jordan,Roll:TheWorldtheSlavesMade (1974).