A Laboratory of Politics Part VI ~ Tower of the Hand

Tags: Guest Essay

Author:

StevenAttewell

Published:

2/1/2015 9:00:00 AM ET

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Contents

On Cultures
Dany's Crusade
The Wages of Moderation
Conclusion
Comments

Lab of Politics

Race for the Iron Throne's Steven Attewell will be sharing some of his work on Tower of the Hand, offering his historical and political insights on A Song of Ice and Fire. Steve began with a five-piece analysis of the Hands of the King, and followed that with his five-part look at Hollow Crowns and Deadly Thrones. Now he turns his attention toward the great continent of Essos. In Part VI: Civil War and Reconstruction in Old Ghis, Steve discusses the slave cities of Old Ghis, and specifically addresses Daenerys' crusade to abolish unfree labor in Slaver's Bay.

This post discusses the fifth book of the series, A Dance with Dragons (published 2011). If you've completed the book, set your scope above to ADWD. Otherwise, we advise you to avoid reading this post as it may contain spoilers.

Steven Attewell is the author of Race for the Iron Throne, a blog that provides political analysis of every Song of Ice and Fire chapter and Game of Thrones episode.

Footnotes

Warning: Footnotes may contain spoilers from later chapters or books.

1 - Randy Findley, From Slavery to Uncertain Freedom, p. 32. Elizabeth A. Regosin, Donald R. Shaffer ed., Voices of Emancipation, p. 26-7. Richard Zuczek ed., Encyclopedia of the Reconstruction Era, p. 54-55
2 - Eric Foner, Reconstruction, loc. 513, 1492-1530, 1735
3 - "the final stage in the decentralization of plantation agriculture was the emergence of sharecropping ... in sharecropping, individual families ... signed contracts with the landowner and became responsible for a specificed piece of land ... generally, sharecroppers retained one third of the year's crop ... to blacks, sharecropping offered an escape from gang labor and day-to-day white supervision. For planters, the system provided a way to reduce the cost and difficulty of labor supervision ... most important of all, it stabilized the work force." Foner, loc. 3566-3582
4 - Foner, loc 757-798, 1954, 2691-3513
5 - Foner, loc. 1298-1473
6 - Foner, loc. 1878, 2301-2429.
7 - Foner, loc. 5728, 8899-9064.
8 - Foner, loc. 115, 647-776, 5758-6333
9 - Meereeneese Blot, "Untangling the Meereenese Knot, Part II: The Peace Was Real."
10 - Ibid
11 - Ibid

Comments

Warning: Discussions are not subject to scope. That is, commenters can and often do discuss events from the most recent book. We recommend avoiding these discussions until you're caught up.

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