From Booklist
*Starred Review* Not only were many of America’s most prestigious colleges founded and supported by slaveholders, but the colleges also provided much of the scholarly and cultural basis of support for slavery. Historian Wilder documents the uncomfortable truth of the inextricable tie between slavery and the ivory tower, how venerable colleges, including Harvard, Princeton, William and Mary, Yale, and others, vied for the attention, land, sons, and money of plantation owners. Slavery provided financial support to the colleges and secure career prospects for many of their graduates, and many colleges owned slaves used for work, trade, and sale. What began for many universities as an ostensible mission of civilizing savages—Native Americans and Africans—later morphed into support for the establishment and development of colonies and territorial expansion. In the growing debate about slavery, abolition, and the movement to return Africans to Africa, prestigious universities and scholars helped to frame and address questions of theology, economics, medicine, history, and other areas of study in the growing debate around the issue, many legitimizing slavery and racism even as they benefited from it. This is a well-researched and revealing look at the connection between American academia and American slavery. --Vanessa Bush
Review
"It is Mr. Wilder's vast and often seemingly banal catalog of mercantile transactions, charitable bequests, and academic and administrative appointments—all links in the chain that joins universities to slavery—that lends the book its disturbing power… a passionate recounting of the collective dehumanization of African-Americans coincident with the rise in power and prestige of the Atlantic college, particularly the Ivy League." –Allegra di Bonaventura, Wall Street Journal
“Wilder knows a great deal about his subject and does not flinch from facing it head-on… there is much to admire in ‘Ebony & Ivy’ and much to learn from it.” –Washington Post
“A groundbreaking history that will no doubt contribute to a reappraisal of some deep-rooted founding myths.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“A well-researched and revealing look at the connection between American academia and American slavery.”—Booklist (starred review)
“Wilder's copiously documented argument exposes how deeply implicated American higher education has been in racial exploitation that has dispossessed and subjugated peoples of color so as to invest whites beyond measure. His is a study deserving of serious attention from anyone interested in America's history, institutions, or intellectual development.” –Library Journal
See all Editorial Reviews