"The Problem of Evil is indeed a very important theme that we have too long side-stepped as research scholars. It lingers next to or beneath so much scholarship on slavery, on war, on our heritage of racism and discrimination, on our study of violence generally. This is the dark side of the human condition and that, frankly, is where so much history that re-shapes society takes place. In America we still as a collective society have to remind ourselves of the evil embedded in our nature, our institutions, our past. Thus, the overall theme of this book is really important at this moment in history."—David W. Blight, author of Race and Reunion:
The Civil War in American Memory
"Slavery's unequivocal evil lies at the heart of debates over apologizing for America's 'peculiar institution' and awarding reparations. In The Problem of Evil: Slavery, Freedom, and the Ambiguities of American Reform, a provocative collection of original essays, the editors Steven Mintz and John Stauffer, along with 23 contributors, admonish scholars to place moral questions in general, but especially American slavery and its legacy, at the center of their work. . . . The contributors to Mintz and Stauffer's excellent collection largely sidestep defining and comparing degrees of evil, but they nevertheless remind us of slavery's timelessness and the ubiquity of moral wrongs. Focusing on evil enables us to see, if not feel, the wicked acts that persons inflict on one another—what Stauffer, a professor of literature and African and African-American studies at Harvard University, eloquently terms 'the dark side of the American soul.'"—The Chronicle of Higher Education
"This book offers a wealth of solid knowledge and sharp insight into the conditions for regional war and peace. . . . Invaluable for the purposes of teaching, theorizing, and grasping the turbulent dynamics of global politics."—International Journal on World Peace