How does Ralph Ellison’s symbolic description of American life as “a drama enacted on the body of a Negro giant […] lying trussed up like Gulliver” (xxv) help structure Baptist’s book and reflect his central arguments?

Slavery is often presented as a premodern institution with little relation to American’s later successes. In what ways is this an inaccurate analysis of slavery’s significance to the United States?

How does the symbol of the “coffle-chain” help to show how the “new slavery” of the cotton economy differed from earlier models of slavery?