Born in the Country: A History of Rural America

Throughout most of its history, American has been a rural nation, largely made up of farmers, and yet recent historians have not successfully surveyed American social history from that perspective. Now David B. Danbom, historian and former president of the Agricultural History Society, has written the first book to offer a comprehensive history of rural America.

Ranging from pre-Columbian times to the enormous changes of the twentieth century, Born in the Country masterfully integrates agricultural, technological, and economic themes with new questions social historians have raised about the American experience―including the different experiences of whites and blacks, men and women, natives and new immigrants. Danbom also illuminates the complex changes in the interrelationship between rural and urban America, as the rural way of life not only became increasingly rare but changed in character as well―from one that differed markedly from the urban experience to one that differed only subtly, if at all. Combining mastery of existing scholarship with a fresh approach to a significant new body of material, Born in the Country is a work that will define the field for years to come.

David B. Danbom is professor of history at North Dakota State University, Fargo. His books include The Resisted Revolution: Urban America and the Industrialization of Agriculture, 1900-1930.