In this comprehensive and innovative Civil War history, R. Douglas Hurt traces the decline and fall of agriculture in the Confederate States of America, the backbone of the Southern economy, which, alongside military strength, Southerners believed would ensure their independence. In a sweeping...

In the last two centuries, agriculture has been an outstanding, if somewhat neglected, success story. Agriculture has fed an ever-growing population with an increasing variety of products at falling prices, even as it has released a growing number of workers to the rest of the economy. This...