Reviews in American History

A fascinating journey inside slave trials of the antebellum Deep South . . . Gross weaves an intricate tale, and, unusually for some historians, her methodology is fully articulated on both the statistical and historiographical planes. . . . What will make this book even more interesting for social, intellectual, and cultural historians is Gross's ability to demystify what might normally be considered intricate and complicated about the law. . . . It is a pleasure to read a legal history that fuses hard statistical data to sophisticated intellectual and cultural history arguments, while maintaining the readability that allows non-lawyers access to the technical side of courtrooms.