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A bold new interpretation of Nat Turner and the slave rebellion that stunned the American SouthIn 1831 Virginia, Nat Turner led a band of Southampton County slaves in a rebellion that killed fifty-five whites, mostly women and children. After more than two months in hiding, Turner was captured, and quickly convicted and executed. In the Matter of Nat Turner penetrates the historical caricature of Turner as befuddled mystic and self-styled Baptist preacher to recover the haunting persona of this legendary American slave rebel, telling of his self-discovery and the dawning of his Christian faith, of an impossible task given to him by God, and of redemptive violence and profane retribution.Much about Turner remains unknown. His extraordinary account of his life and rebellion, given in chains as he awaited trial in jail, was written down by an opportunistic white attorney and sold as a pamphlet to cash in on Turner's notoriety. But the enigmatic rebel leader had an immediate and broad impact on the American South, and his rebellion remains one of the most momentous episodes in American history. Christopher Tomlins provides a luminous account of Turner's intellectual development, religious cosmology, and motivations, and offers an original and incisive analysis of the Turner Rebellion itself and its impact on Virginia politics. Tomlins also undertakes a deeply critical examination of William Styron's 1967 novel, The Confessions of Nat Turner, which restored Turner to the American consciousness in the era of civil rights, black power, and urban riots.A speculative history that recovers Turner from the few shards of evidence we have about his life, In the Matter of Nat Turner is also a unique speculation about the meaning and uses of history itself.
Show moreA bold new interpretation of Nat Turner and the slave rebellion that stunned the American SouthIn 1831 Virginia, Nat Turner led a band of Southampton County slaves in a rebellion that killed fifty-five whites, mostly women and children. After more than two months in hiding, Turner was captured, and quickly convicted and executed. In the Matter of Nat Turner penetrates the historical caricature of Turner as befuddled mystic and self-styled Baptist preacher to recover the haunting persona of this legendary American slave rebel, telling of his self-discovery and the dawning of his Christian faith, of an impossible task given to him by God, and of redemptive violence and profane retribution.Much about Turner remains unknown. His extraordinary account of his life and rebellion, given in chains as he awaited trial in jail, was written down by an opportunistic white attorney and sold as a pamphlet to cash in on Turner's notoriety. But the enigmatic rebel leader had an immediate and broad impact on the American South, and his rebellion remains one of the most momentous episodes in American history. Christopher Tomlins provides a luminous account of Turner's intellectual development, religious cosmology, and motivations, and offers an original and incisive analysis of the Turner Rebellion itself and its impact on Virginia politics. Tomlins also undertakes a deeply critical examination of William Styron's 1967 novel, The Confessions of Nat Turner, which restored Turner to the American consciousness in the era of civil rights, black power, and urban riots.A speculative history that recovers Turner from the few shards of evidence we have about his life, In the Matter of Nat Turner is also a unique speculation about the meaning and uses of history itself.
Show moreAn interpretive history of the Nat Turner revolt and its legacy.
Christopher Tomlins is the Elizabeth Josselyn Boalt Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley, and an affiliated research professor at the American Bar Foundation, Chicago. His many books include Freedom Bound: Law, Labor, and Civic Identity in Colonizing English America, 15801865 and Law, Labor, and Ideology in the Early American Republic. He lives in Berkeley.
"Winner of the Francis Parkman Prize, Society of American
Historians"
"Winner of the Richard Slatten Award for Excellence in Virginia
Biography, Virginia Museum of History & Culture (Virginia
Historical Society)"
"[An] expertly constructed work, one of the handful of books on
Turner destined to become essential reading for understanding the
events of August 1831."---Douglas R. Egerton Le Moyne, American
Historical Review
"[In the Matter of Nat Turner] succeeds in challenging established
assumptions about Turner’s intellectual world, and it is likely
that, with its publication, historians will be much more inclined
to pay more attention to the importance of religion in Turner’s
rebellion."---Enrico Dal Iago, Journal of American History
"A major achievement. Tomlins is a brilliant historian, and his
study is full of many new insights that make significant
contributions to our understanding. Most importantly, Tomlins is
one of the only historians to pay careful attention to the mind of
the rebel leader. . . . Tomlins has given us a well-researched,
always interesting and intellectually stimulating new book on Nat
Turner. We should be deeply grateful for this extraordinary,
sparkling work of history."---Kenneth S. Greenberg, Journal of the
Early Republic
"You can peel off layers, break off pieces and grab chunks out of
In the Matter of Nat Turner, A Speculative History by Christopher
Tomlins and have what I call a good book chew. Indigestion only
comes because it makes you think about what you’re
chewing."---Arelya J. Mitchell, The Mid-South Tribune
"In the Matter of Nat Turner offers a new reading of the well-known
and much written-about document purporting to record the confession
of the leader of an 1831 slave rebellion in Virginia, set in the
context of a thick reconstruction of the local legal and political
debates about slavery and representation. Christopher Tomlins makes
the argument that previous interpreters have failed to take Turner
seriously as a religious thinker, reducing his visionary religious
narrative to nothing more than a cover for his political
objectives. . . . In the Matter of Nat Turner is a very ambitious
and complex book."---Winnifred Fallers Sullivan, Journal of the
American Academy of Religion
"An ambitious and deeply researched intellectual achievement…In the
Matter of Nat Turner stands as an exemplar and benchmark of both
the depth and imagination with which we ought to engage Nat Turner
and the perils imposing our own facticity upon him in the
process."---M. Cooper Harriss, Religious Studies Review
"[In the Matter of Nat Turner] is a book about the Nat Turner
revolt as much as it is about the craft of writing history. By
framing his arguments in Benjaminian terms, Tomlins succeeds in
addressing questions of subaltern voices, archival silences and the
limits of historical narrative . . . Tomlins makes a compelling
case."---Sebastian Jobs, Annual Bulletin of Historical
Literature
"[A] remarkably interesting book…[In the Matter of Nat Turner is]
endlessly fascinating . . . [Chris Tomlins] takes us on an
illuminated mystery tour of this most mysterious of events and much
else besides. . . . Enriching."---Paul Harvey, Church History
"In the Matter of Nat Turner is a tour de force. . . . Tomlins’s
book shows how historical speculation and conjecture can be done in
a way that is nonetheless solidly grounded in biblical,
philosophical, anthropological, and historical context."---Angela
Fernandez, Legal History
"For those looking for a provocative set of speculations about
Turner’s religiosity, [In the Matter of Nat Turner] provides much
about which to think and argue."---Vanessa M. Holden, Journal of
Social History
"[A] profound new book…In the Matter of Nat Turner is a book
teeming with insight. Tomlins’ provocative analysis of Turner’s own
ideas will no doubt generate fruitful debate and have to be
reckoned with by scholars in a variety of fields. But beyond that,
Tomlins provides us with a powerful model for how to write history
that both links individual biography with broader structural
analysis and that centers the perspective of those long
excluded."---Aziz Rana, Legal Form
"Christopher Tomlins’ In the Matter of Nat Turner offers new
insights into the thinking of Nat Turner and then employs those
insights to meditate upon the discipline of history itself. Through
his searching study of the actors and events of 1831, Tomlins
interrogates contemporary historians’ own thinking and practice,
their blind spots and erasures, their commitment to a disciplinary
machine that yields often crushingly familiar answers. For these
reasons, In the Matter of Nat Turner deserves a readership not only
among historians of the antebellum South, but also among all
interested in history as a modern knowledge form."---Kunal Parker,
Radical Philosophy
"An important, 'speculative' work of intellectual history for all
academic collections."
*Choice Reviews*
"This book is not only tremendously enjoyable, but also a very
useful addition to the field of slavery and the history of
resistance and rebellion in the Americas."---Laura Sandy, Slavery
and Abolition
"In the Matter of Nat Turner provides a master class in what it
means to explore the unwritten, to engage with the fragmentary, and
to expand the potentialities of historical research."---Honor
Sachs, Law and History Review
"[A] brilliant and challenging book. . . . Tomlins crafts a new
major interpretation in this ‘intellectual history of Nat Turner,’
centered on a compelling account of Turner’s faith and its
collision with the emerging political and economic order of
antebellum Virginia. . . . A richly rewarding book."---Randolph
Scully, Journal of Southern History
"A skillful reading and imagining of the sources . . . [and] a
compelling retelling of Nat Turnerʼs life, beliefs, and intellect
as well as the political significance of his rebellion."---Tamika
Nunley, William & Mary Quarterly
"Tomlins has succeeded in writing a distinctive sort of
intellectual history. . . . In the Matter of Nat Turner offers much
more than a new analysis of Turner’s Confessions."---Bradford J.
Wood, North Carolina Historical Review
"An incredibly complex, erudite, and thought provoking
book."---Bruce E. Baker, Journal of Religious History
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