Description:
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?Brief description: R. DOUGLAS HURT is an emeritus professor in the Department of History at Purdue University. Hurt is a past president of the Agricultural History Society, a former editor of Agricultural History, and a Fellow of the Agricultural History Society. He has received the Gladys L. Baker Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Agricultural History Society. He is the author of Agriculture and Slavery in Missouri's Little Dixie, which won the Missouri Book Award from the State Historical Society and Agriculture in the Midwest, 1815-1900, which won the Jon Gjerde Book Prize presented by the Midwestern History Association. Hurt lives and writes in eastern Tennessee.
Review Quotes: 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"