Rural Europe and pre-Columbian America -- The rural development of English North America -- Maturity and its discontents -- Agriculture and economic growth in the young republic -- Rural life in the young nation -- The unmaking and remaking of the rural South -- Rural America in the age of industrialization -- Prosperity and its discontents -- From the best of times to the worst -- The New Deal and rural America -- The production revolution and the new agriculture -- Agriculture and rural life in the twenty-first century.
Summary:
"Born in the Country was the first--and is still the only--general history of rural America published. Ranging from pre-Columbian times to the enormous changes of the twentieth century, Born in the Country masterfully integrates agricultural, technological, and economic themes with new questions social historians have raised about the American experience--including the different experiences of whites and blacks, men and women, natives and new immigrants. In this substantially revised and updated third edition, David B. Danbom expands and deepens his coverage of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, focusing on the changes in agriculture and rural life since 1945. He discusses the alarming decline of agriculture as a productive enterprise and the parallel disintegration of farm families into demographic insignificance. In a new and provocative final chapter, Danbom reflects on whether a distinctive style of rural life exists any longer. Combining mastery of existing scholarship with a fresh approach to new material, Born in the Country continues to define the field of American rural history."--Provided by publisher.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.