Agricultural History Review, Volume 55 Part 1 (2007), p. 144

In the introduction to the first edition of this book (1995), Danbom explained that he had tried to integrate the recent outpouring of rural American social history with current political and economic history to provide a synthetic history that would serve as a text for courses in agricultural and rural history.

The text of the 2006 edition closely follows its predecessor through the first ten of the original twelve chapters, making minor changes in wording and revision or elimination of short passages. Subunits of these chapters examine rural life in early modern Europe, woodland culture in North America, the rural development of British North America, the maturing society, the revolution and political consequences, early nineteenth-century agriculture and economic growth, life in rural America and in the slave economy, post-Civil War southern agriculture, settlement of the Great Plains, and agrarian protest. At Chapter Eight we reach the Golden Age of Agriculture and the Country Life movement, followed by treatments of the difficult 1920s and the Great Depression and World War II developments.

The original Chapter Eleven described the production revolution that occurred after 1950 followed by a final chapter describing the federal farm policies of the 1970s and the depressed 1980s, concluding with a tribute to rural survivors. In 2006, Danbom merged their content into Chapter Eleven which describes the revolutionary improvements in crop and animal yields, machinery, and biotechnological innovations and their collective impact after the 1950s. The production revolution, Danbom maintains, transformed farming economics but ‘failed to reverse the regression of agriculture from being central to the American economy to becoming marginal and, ultimately, trivial’ (p.257). An Afterword, ‘A rural America without agriculture’ highlights the loss of farm population and urbanization of rural values, using Union County, Illinois to illustrate the stages through which rural life in America has passed. It ends by asking ‘can we even talk about rural life as distinctive any longer, or is it just “life”?’ (p.263). Both editions include a useful guide to further reading.

In his review in Agricultural History (70, 1996, pp.682–3), Gilbert C.Fite described the first edition as ‘authoritative and exciting,’ ‘must reading’ for all seeking to understand the place of agriculture in American ‘history, tradition, and culture,’ and a rewarding change from current ‘wormhole’ history. Other reviewers offered praise with qualifications. Some topics, said Marilyn P.Watkins (Western Historical Quarterly, 27, 1996, p.399), received no more attention than found in American history survey texts, the unpleasant side of farm life was overemphasized while other aspects, especially the more positive ones, were ignored. Hal S.Barron, in the American Historical Review (102, 1997, pp.167–8) believed that Danbom, failed to ‘offer a “new ... way of understanding”’ the rural past, short changed the agricultural America west, and for the most part ignored the community aspects of farm life. Robert P.Swierenga, in the Journal of American History (83, 1996, pp.171–2) detected a ‘generally negative tone’ and a narrative that disregarded behavioural approaches and slighted community processes.

Most of these same criticisms can be levelled to some degree at the second edition. This reviewer agrees that the book inadequately reflects regional differences, that the infrastructure of non-farm operators, of rural services and industries is largely missing, and that the community institutions and social structures of the last 150 years are slighted. I also believe that reading agriculture’s current status as approaching triviality misreads the situation. These points made, the current book is an extremely well-written narrative that presents its information accurately. Its coverage goes well beyond that of previous one-volume histories of American agriculture. We still await an author who draws fully upon comparative and interdisciplinary perspectives in telling the story but in the meantime Danbom’s book can well serve the classroom teacher and general reader – although it may convince some students that they do not wish to be part of the American agricultural experience ahead.