From British Peasants to Colonial American Farmers

With this book, Allan Kulikoff offers a sweeping new interpretation of the origins and development of the small farm economy in Britain's mainland American colonies. Examining the lives of farmers and their families, he tells the story of immigration to the colonies, traces patterns of settlement, analyzes the growth of markets, and assesses the impact of the Revolution on small farm society.

Beginning with the dispossession of the peasantry in early modern England, Kulikoff follows the immigrants across the Atlantic to explore how they reacted to a hostile new environment and its Indian inhabitants. He discusses how colonists secured land, built farms, and bequeathed those farms to their children. Emphasizing commodity markets in early America, Kulikoff shows that without British demand for the colonists' crops, settlement could not have begun at all. Most important, he explores the destruction caused during the American Revolution, showing how the war thrust farmers into subsistence production and how they only gradually regained their prewar prosperity.

Author: Allan Kulikoff
Publisher: University of North Carolina Press
Published: 11/13/2000
Pages: 504
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.62lbs
Size: 9.26h x 6.14w x 1.27d
ISBN: 9780807848821

Review Citation(s):
Choice 03/01/2001 pg. 1316
Reference and Research Bk News 11/01/2001 pg. 75

About the Author

Allan Kulikoff is professor of history at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb. His previous books include Tobacco and Slaves: The Development of Southern Cultures in the Chesapeake, 1680-1800.