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Liberation Historiography: African American Writers and the Challenge of History, 1794-1861
Contributor(s): Ernest, John (Author)
ISBN: 0807855219     ISBN-13: 9780807855218
Publisher: University of North Carolina Press
OUR PRICE:   $47.50  
Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats
Published: April 2004
Qty:
Annotation: As the story of the United States was recorded in pages written by white historians, early-nineteenth-century African American writers faced the task of piecing together a counterhistory: an approach to history that would present both the necessity of and the means for the liberation of the oppressed. In "Liberation Historiography," John Ernest demonstrates that African Americans created a body of writing in which the spiritual, the historical, and the political are inextricably connected. Their literature serves not only as historical recovery but also as historical intervention.

Ernest studies various cultural forms including orations, books, pamphlets, autobiographical narratives, and black press articles. He shows how writers such as Martin R. Delany, David Walker, Frederick Douglass, William Wells Brown, and Harriet Jacobs crafted their texts in order to resituate their readers in a newly envisioned community of faith and moral duty. Antebellum African American historical representation, Ernest concludes, was both a reading of source material on black lives and an unreading of white nationalist history through an act of moral imagination.

Additional Information
BISAC Categories:
- History | United States - 19th Century
- Literary Criticism | American - African American
- Social Science | Ethnic Studies - African American Studies
Dewey: 973.049
LCCN: 2003017902
Physical Information: 1.14" H x 6.18" W x 9.42" (1.46 lbs) 448 pages
Themes:
- Chronological Period - 19th Century
- Ethnic Orientation - African American
 
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc.
Publisher Description:
As the story of the United States was recorded in pages written by white historians, early-nineteenth-century African American writers faced the task of piecing together a counterhistory: an approach to history that would present both the necessity of and the means for the liberation of the oppressed. In Liberation Historiography, John Ernest demonstrates that African Americans created a body of writing in which the spiritual, the historical, and the political are inextricably connected. Their literature serves not only as historical recovery but also as historical intervention.

Ernest studies various cultural forms including orations, books, pamphlets, autobiographical narratives, and black press articles. He shows how writers such as Martin R. Delany, David Walker, Frederick Douglass, William Wells Brown, and Harriet Jacobs crafted their texts in order to resituate their readers in a newly envisioned community of faith and moral duty. Antebellum African American historical representation, Ernest concludes, was both a reading of source material on black lives and an unreading of white nationalist history through an act of moral imagination.


Contributor Bio(s): Ernest, John: - John Ernest is associate professor of English at the University of New Hampshire. He is author of Resistance and Reformation in Nineteenth-Century African American Literature: Brown, Wilson, Jacobs, Delany, Douglass, and Harper and editor of three volumes of nineteenth-century African American writing.