Peculiar Institution: Slavery in the Ante-Bellum South

Winner of the Lincoln Prize

Stampp s classic study of American slavery as a deliberately chosen, practical system of controlling and exploiting labor is one of the most important and influential works of American history written in our time.

A thoughtful and deeply moving book. . . . Mr. Stampp wants to show specifically what slavery was like, why it existed, and what it did to the American people. Bruce Catton