On September 26, Eugene Dominick Genovese, one of the most influential—and controversial—historians of his generation, passed away at age eighty-two. During the latter stage of his career he had publicly renounced Marxist atheism and returned to the Roman Catholic Church that had nurtured him in his youth. No scholar studied more deeply the history of the master-slave relation in the antebellum South. His masterpiece, Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made, which in 1975 received the Bancroft Prize, the most prestigious prize in the field of American history, will stand the test of time. During the mid-1970s, with Gene’s stature in the academy on the rise, I entered the graduate program in history at the University of Rochester to obtain a Ph.D. under his supervision. At Rochester, he and I entered into a friendship that remained unbroken for more than thirty-five years. Few people knew him better than I did.

Gene, I know, would not have wanted anyone to fuss over or enflower him with praise upon his death. He knew the end was coming; his restored faith had fortified him; he reached the end with courage and grace; and he respected the time and lives of others. “No tears; let’s get it over with,” he would have told the attendants who gathered at the Cathedral of Christ the King in Atlanta. “Go get yourself a drink.” Gene loved to argue, especially on politics, and those of us who regularly engaged him in sometimes