Rethinking Uncle Tom Book

Acknowledgments ix

Preface xi

Book I The Ghostly Cry: Uncle Tom's Cabin

Part I

1 The Question of Equality 5

2 The Real Alternatives 13

3 Standards of Humanity 27

4 Stowe's Own "Introductions" 31

5 A Little Wine and Brandy: The Narrative Begins 49

6 Patriarchy, Matriarchy, and Other Myths of Slavery 59

7 The Birth of Uncle Tom 69

8 The Kinesis of Slavery and the Science of Natures 83

9 "What Country Have I?" 95

10 We Have No City 107

11 The Light of the Present 121

12 Myth Making and the End 147

13 An Unaccountable Prejudice 155

14 Triumph 169

Part II

15 The Genealogy of Uncle Tom 185

16 Calvin's Ideas 201

17 The Central Problem: Slavery 213

18 The General Significance of Uncle Tom's Cabin 237

Book II Non-utopian Optimism: Harriet Stowe's Evangelical Liberalism

Part I The Middle Passage: Sunny Memories

19 An American Campaign Abroad 253

20 A Cause Célèbre 277

21 Seasickness; or, the Way Things Really Look 287

22 The Scotland Campaign: A Beginning and End of Liberal History 293

23 The Practical Politics of the Matter 347

24 The Defense of Melodrama 381

25 Pre-Utopian Reflections 393

Part II Salvation

26 Anutopia 409

27 Coda: Was Harriet Stowe a Racist? 437

28 Postscript 441

Bibliography 443

Index 455

About the Author 463