376 pages / 6.00 x 9.00 inches / no illustrations
History / United States - Civil War Period | History / United States - Southern History | Social Studies / Rural Studies
James L. Huston, professor of history at Oklahoma State University, is the author several books on the political and economic history of nineteenth-century America, including The British Gentry, the Southern Planter, and the Northern Family Farmer: Agriculture and Sectional Antagonism in North America.
“Charts, graphs, and tables throughout the text show the thoroughness of [Huston’s] research while presenting a picture of plantations in the South pushing out small yeoman farmers. . . . This excellent book explains how those dwelling in the countryside, not the cities, instigated this great conflict.”—Civil War Book Review
“Occasionally, sweeping studies remind us to consider the devils in the details. James L. Huston’s The British Gentry, the Southern Planter, and the Northern Family Farmer. . . . is impressive in its scope and provocative in its insight.”—North Carolina Historical Review
“A social and statistical examination of the role that agricultural systems played in the divisions of the US Civil War. . . .The work spans an enormous amount of material, both primary and secondary. This will no doubt contribute to the continuing discussions among historians about the Civil War and its various causes.”—Canadian Journal of History
“This combative, iconoclastic book, packed front to back with rich research, fresh approaches, and provocative claims, holds great significance for all who study the antebellum era and the coming of the Civil War. Author James Huston proves himself an inventive methodologist, a trenchant interpreter, and a zestfully engaging writer. . . . An enormously important book. Its explanation of Civil War causation is original, challenging, and in so many ways convincing. Everyone seriously engaged in antebellum American history needs to read it and to grapple with its implications.”—Journal of the Early Republic
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