The definitive history of life in rural America.
Throughout most of its history, America has been a rural nation, largely
made up of farmers. David B. Danbom's Born in the Country was the
first--and still is the only--general history of rural America. Ranging
from pre-Columbian times to the enormous changes of the twentieth
century, the book masterfully integrates agricultural, technological,
and economic themes with new questions about the American experience.
Danbom employs the stories of particular farm families to illustrate the
experiences of rural people. This substantially revised and updated
third edition
- expands and deepens its coverage of the late twentieth and early
twenty-first centuries
- focuses on the changes in agriculture and rural life in the
progressive and New Deal eras as well as the massive shifts that have
taken place since 1945
- adds new information about African American and Native American
agricultural experiences
- discusses the decline of agriculture as a productive enterprise and
its impact on farm families and communities
- explores rural culture, gender issues, agriculture, and the
environment
- traces the relationship among farmers, agribusiness, and consumers
In a new and provocative concluding chapter, Danbom reflects on
increasing consumer disenchantment with and resistance to modern
agriculture as well as the transformation of rural America into a place
where farmers are a shrinking minority. Ultimately, he asks whether a
distinctive style of rural life exists any longer.
