All God's Children Study Guide & Plot Synopsis

All God's Children Plot Summary

Preview of All God's Children Summary:

All God's Children is author Fox Butterfield's book-length case study of Willie Bosket, one of the most violent criminals in the history of the New York State Correctional System. Butterfield's study is far from ordinary, however, as he traces the roots of Bosket's behavior five generations back in time to the general culture of violence present in Edgefield County, South Carolina, where Bosket's great-great grandfather was a slave. Along with telling Bosket's story, Butterfield sets out an implicit theory of the causes of violence that extends throughout the five generations discussed in the book. The book therefore not only chronicles the Bosket family but partly serves as a theoretical inquiry into the nature of violence in the United States and the African-American community.

Butterfield begins his story in Edgefield County, South Carolina, where he marshals compelling evidence that Edgefield has always been an unusually violent region of an unusually violent...
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