The Country People
An Agricultural History of the American Revolution
Format:Hardback
Publisher:University of Georgia Press
Publishing:1st Aug '26
£135.95
This title is due to be published on 1st August, and will be despatched as soon as possible.
A comprehensive and authoritative history of agriculture during the American Revolution
Although historians have given considerable attention to the American Revolution, the agricultural history of the American War for Independence exists only in pieces found in scattered articles and passing references in various books dealing with the war.
Although historians have given considerable attention to the American Revolution, the agricultural history of the American War for Independence exists only in pieces found in scattered articles and passing references in various books dealing with the war. Nonagricultural historians have ignored it or treated it almost as an aside and unworthy of analysis, even when it is related to other war topics. Yet, the revolution had profound effects on American agriculture during the war and after.
The Country People brings the many pieces of this story together in a synthesis that provides an overview of agriculture during the American Revolution—from 1774 until signing of the Peace of Paris on September 3, 1783. In so doing, preeminent agricultural historian R. Douglas Hurt asks (and answers) three essential questions: What did farmers do in their daily lives during the revolutionary years from 1774 to 1783? How did the war affect farmers and planters, and how did they influence the war? And what were the consequences of the war on American agriculture?
In The Country People, the distinguished agricultural historian R. Douglas Hurt fills large gaps in both the history of American agriculture and the history of the American Revolution. In so doing, Hurt at once creates a much-needed framework within which to view American agriculture during the war, provides readers with a strong narrative history of agriculture during wartime, and lays out both the achievements and shortcomings of farmers and the farm sector during the uprising. An important work by one of our leading agricultural historians.
-- Peter A. Coclanis * Albert R. Newsome Distinguished Professor of History, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill *In The Country People, R. Douglas Hurt, the dean of American agricultural history, delivers a definitive account of how farmers shaped the course of the American Revolution and how that conflict, in turn, transformed American agriculture. Ranging from New England provisioners to Carolina rice planters, from Valley Forge foraging parties to Indigenous cultivators, Hurt shows that farmers were not background figures in the revolutionary drama. They were its indispensable protagonists. Wide-ranging, deeply researched, and authoritative, The Country People restores agricultural production to the heart of the nation’s founding struggle.
-- T. Cole Jones * author of Useful Captives: The Problem of Political Prisoners in the American RevolutiISBN: 9780820377209
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
382 pages