Born in the Country
Subtitle: A History of Rural America (Revisiting Rural America)
Edition: second edition edition
Publisher: The Johns Hopkins University Press; Johns Hopkins University Press
Published: September 11, 2006
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 320
ISBN-13: 9780801884580
Subjects: American history; Rural communities; History: American; Farm life; History; History - U.S; United States - General; USA; Industries - Agribusiness; Social History; History / United States / General; Country life; Agriculture - General; Agriculture; United States
First sentence: If you form a mental picture of the American countryside today, what you probably see is a large expanse of open country, sprinkled with farmsteads surrounded by fenced lands.
Description: 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 second 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 afterword, Danbom reflects on whether a distinctive style of rural life exists any longer.