Issues surrounding agriculture have always had pride of place among academic research in economic history. Interest in agricultural issues does not seem to come into fashion, and then fade into the background only to return years later. Indeed, agriculture was so vital to the workings of...

"Author Ron traces how middle-class farmers in the "Greater Northeast" built a movement of semi-public agricultural societies, fairs, and periodicals that, together, fundamentally recast the relationship of rural people to market forces and governing structures. A novelty of his historical...