About the Author

William Kauffman Scarborough, professor emeritus of history at the University of Southern Mississippi, is the author of The Overseer and The Allstons of Chicora Wood and editor of the three-volume The Diary of Edmund Ruffin.

Reviews

An ambitious book that sheds light on a number of controversies. . . . [It] will force a reexamination of much that historians have thought about the Old South and its slaveholding elite. All who read it will be indebted to Scarborough for this deeply researched and clearly argued historical interpretation of an important subject.-- "American Historical Review"

In a remarkable feat of archival excavation, Scarborough probes the world of this cosmopolitan, highly educated, remarkably capable, and largely racist group.-- "Atlantic Monthly"