Visuality, rhetoric, and reality in the Second Slavery

This piece engages with the new book Reconstructing the Landscapes of Slavery: A Visual History of the Plantation in the Nineteenth-Century Atlantic World. It places the text within the longer publication histories of the four authors, while also articulating what is unique about the book under discussion. Finally, it wrestles with the authors’ particular take on aesthetics and power, as well as the theory of plantation landscape they advocate, suggesting the usefulness of some alternative perspectives.