Eugene Genovese is a historian who has written many books about American history, including a book on slavery entitled Roll Jordan Roll. He was actually a communist when he wrote this book, but he crossed the PC line by writing about positive relationships some slaves had with their owners. He was in no way justifying slavery as an institution, or even suggesting that these relationships in any way mitigated the power differences between the individuals involved and the evil of that aspect of the relationship. He simply documented some level of humanity that managed to transcend the horrible realities of this institution. Some on the left took harsh exception to that, and slammed Genovese for it. I believe this experience probably sent him on his way to the right. He and his wife are now self-defined conservatives. I still find his writing compelling. I do have to comment about an echange he had with other leftists in Dissent Magazine after his conversion. He had written a confession that "we" on the left didn't want to hear about Stalin's evils and turned on fellow leftists who tried to bring them up during the 40s and 50s. In a response entitled "What do you mean 'we' Eugene?" one of his fellow writers pointed out that Dissent Magazine itself was a bastion of democratic socialists who were trying to raise awareness of Stalin's crimes and other evils of authoritarian socialism, and that it was merely the Communist Party and fellow travelors who suppressed dissenting opinions, but that there have always been many liberals and socialists who were aware and tried to argue about it. They didn't take kindly to Genoveses' dismissal of the importance of their contributions.