Synopses & Reviews
This volume collects Professor Parker's major writings on American agricultural and industrial history, including some essays not previously published. Taken as a whole, these essays give an account of why and how the United States grew rich in the nineteenth century, as well as a background against which to judge the present position of the economy and its international position. Professor Parker focuses on the nineteenth-century experience of the three regions of the United States--northeast, south and midwest, and shows wherein lay the sources of their wealth and growth into a flourishing nation. A final chapter, looking at European development from an American perspective, is especially timely in view of the recent movements toward integration and democratization in the "mother continent."
Synopsis
Focusing on the nineteenth-century experience of three U.S. regions, the northeast, south and midwest, these essays trace the agricultural and industrial sources of wealth and growth that accounted for the country's development as a flourishing nation.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments; Dedication; Preface; A note on notes; Part I. America And Europe: A History: 1. American civilisation: the impulse from Europe; Part II. The South In Slavery And In Freedom: 2. The slave plantation in American agriculture; 3. Slavery and southern economic development: an hypothesis and some evidence; 4. Labour productivity in cotton farming: a problem of research; 5. The south in the national economy, 1865-1970; 6. Capitalism: southern style; Part III. Capitalist Dynamics Of The Rural North: 7. Breakthrough to the midwest; 8. Migration and a political culture; 9. The technological bases of a productive agriculture; 10. The true history of the northern farmer; Part IV. The North: Dynamics Of An Industrial Culture: 11. New England: the Puritan progenitor; 12. The industrial civilisation of the midwest Epilogue: Denouement and decline; Part V. American Values In A Capitalist World: 13. Political controls on a national economy; 14. Nationhood in a Common Market; 15. European industrialisation in an American mirror.