The nostalgic mist surrounding farms can make it hard to write their history, encrusting them with stereotypical rural virtues and unrealistically separating them from markets, capitalism, and urban influences.
Emily Pawley examines a place and period of enormous agricultural vitality--Antebellum New York State--and follows thousands of "improving agriculturists," part of the largest, most diverse, and most active scientific co.
The Nature of the Future aims to remake this staid vision.
The nostalgic mist surrounding farms can make it hard to write their history, encrusting them with stereotypical rural virtues and unrealistically separating them from markets, capitalism, and urban influences