A Question of Manhood: A Reader in U.S. Black Men's History and Masculinity. (Book Reviews).

A Question of Manhood: A Reader in U.S. Black Men's History and Masculinity. Volume I: "Manhood Rights": The Construction of Black Male History and Manhood, 1750-1870. Edited by Darlene Clark Hine and Earnestine Jenkins. Blacks in the Diaspora. (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, c. 1999. Pp. xx, 599. Paper, $24.95, ISBN 0-253-21343-6; cloth, $49.95, ISBN 0-253-33639-2.)

A Question of Manhood is a compilation of twenty-three previously published essays that insightfully analyze the gendered responses of black men to the issues that confronted them from colonial times through the Civil War. The volume is divided into five parts. Part One illustrates how vestigial African conceptions of manhood affected the actions of black males as colonial slaves. Part Two focuses on how black male workers, both slave and free, used their skills to forge identities for themselves as men. The essays in Part Three investigate the antebellum years, examining how gender influenced the development of African American culture. Part Four highlights the impact of gender on black efforts to resist slavery, while Part Five examines the relationship between war and conceptions of manhood.

Prior to the presentation of the essays, the editors contribute a lengthy and useful introduction that synthesizes the topics discussed in the individual articles with the overall theme of the volume. The introduction provides not only helpful summaries of the essays but also important background information that aids the reader in understanding the issues and movement of American history prior to the Civil War.

Although all of the essays contribute to the gendered history of black males, some of them prove to be exceptionally useful. For example, "Slave Runaways in Colonial North Carolina, 1748-1775," describes the various factors that motivated enslaved men to run away. The authors, Marvin L. Michael Kay and Lorin Lee Cary, explain how black men's determination to reestablish family ties constituted the primary reason for their decisions to take flight and endure the obstacles and dangers that awaited runaway slaves. Another impressive article is Charles B. Dew's "Disciplining Slave Ironworkers in the Antebellum South: Coercion, Conciliation, and Accomodation." Dew describes how enslaved industrial workers used their acquired skills to force concessions on white masters. These concessions made it possible for skilled laborers to enjoy a greater degree of freedom than their counterparts in agriculture. Also, black ironworkers often earned their own money, which enabled them to improve the quality of life for themselves and their families and to be "more their own men" (p. 17). Among the many other fine essays, Diane Miller Sommerville's "The Rape Myth in the Old South Reconsidered" and Jim Cullen's "I's a Man Now" deserve special mention.

The only criticism that I have of the volume is related to its organization. The editors present the articles primarily on a chronological basis, but I believe they would have been better served to have organized them thematically. For example, Sidney and Emma Kaplan's "Bearers of Arms: Patriot and Tory" and Robert E. May's "Invisible Men: Blacks and the U.S. Army in the Mexican War," both articles related to African Americans and war, would have fit nicely in Part Five with the articles that examined the Civil War experiences of blacks. Also, Jane Landers's "Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose: A Free Black Town in Spanish Colonial Florida" and Kay and Cary's "Slave Runaways in Colonial North Carolina" should have been placed in Part Four with Douglas R. Egerton's "`Fly across the River': The Easter Slave Conspiracy of 1802," since all of these articles serve to demonstrate black resistance to slavery.

Darlene Clark Hine and Earnestine Jenkins should be commended for their efforts in compiling this volume. Their tedious gleaning from over two hundred scholarly journals has made possible a unified work that further advances our understanding of the gendered responses of black males in American history. The work also provides scholars with a solid foundation from which to advance future scholarship.