Volume 48, Number 9 · May 31, 2001
The Price of Honor
By Edmund S. Morgan
The Shaping of Southern Culture: Honor, Grace, and War, 1760s–1880s
Bertram Wyatt-Brown
University of North Carolina Press, 412 pp., $55.00 cloth; $19.95 (paper)
Southern Honor: Ethics and Behavior in the Old South
Bertram Wyatt-Brown
Oxford University Press, 597 pp., $19.95 (paper)
Honor and Slavery
Kenneth S. Greenberg
Princeton University Press, 224 pp., $40.00; 176 pp., $16.95 (paper)
Few words in any language carry such a load of meaning as 'honor.' It is an old word, unchanged even in its spelling from classical Latin to modern English. Spoken or written it does not seem to require much explanation; most people think they know what it means. But why have Latin scholars suggested that it derives from onus, meaning burden, a concept not usually associated with it? Why do dictionaries need so much space for it? The Oxford English Dictionary in 1901 listed eight meanings, Webster's in 1996 fifteen. The Encyclopedia of Social Sciences in 1931 devoted a little more than three columns to it, the International Encyclopedia of Social Sciences in 1966 gave it fifteen. And in the past twenty or thirty years the number of books exploring its application to different things at different times and places and in different situations has grown exponentially. Those examined here on the American South have to be seen as part of a larger development in the study of social relations that has placed honor in a central position.
Review, 3296 words
To read the full text of this piece, please choose one of the following options:
|
If you are already a subscriber to the Review's electronic edition, please sign in: |
To subscribe to the electronic edition, please press the button below. |
To purchase access to this article for $3, please press the button below. |