Book ID: CBB001422341

A Golden Weed: Tobacco and Environment in the Piedmont South (2014)

unapi

Swanson, Drew A. (Author)


Yale University Press


Publication Date: 2014
Physical Details: xv + 342 pp.; ill.; maps; notes; index
Language: English

Drew A. Swanson has written an “environmental” history about a crop of great historical and economic significance: American tobacco. A preferred agricultural product for much of the South, the tobacco plant would ultimately degrade the land that nurtured it, but as the author provocatively argues, the choice of crop initially made perfect agrarian as well as financial sense for southern planters. Swanson, who brings to his narrative the experience of having grown up on a working Virginia tobacco farm, explores how one attempt at agricultural permanence went seriously awry. He weaves together social, agricultural, and cultural history of the Piedmont region and illustrates how ideas about race and landscape management became entangled under slavery and afterward. Challenging long-held perceptions, this innovative study examines not only the material relationships that connected crop, land, and people but also the justifications that encouraged tobacco farming in the region.

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Reviewed By

Review Brian Donahue (2015) Review of "A Golden Weed: Tobacco and Environment in the Piedmont South". Journal of American History (pp. 247-248). unapi

Review Adrienne Monteith Petty (2016) Review of "A Golden Weed: Tobacco and Environment in the Piedmont South". American Historical Review (pp. 241-242). unapi

Review Cohen, Benjamin R. (2015) Review of "A Golden Weed: Tobacco and Environment in the Piedmont South". Environmental History (pp. 297-299). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB001422341/

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Authors & Contributors
Jeng, Alieu
Swindell, Ken
Van Lanen, Amanda
Suzanne, Schwarz
Simons, Peter
Silke, Strickrodt
Concepts
Agriculture
Economic botany; plant cultivation; horticulture
Farmers
Slavery and slaves
Technology and race
Cross-cultural interaction; cultural influence
Time Periods
19th century
18th century
20th century
17th century
20th century, early
Early modern
Places
United States
Virginia (U.S.)
West Africa
Caribbean
Africa
Atlantic world
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