The great Tidewater planters of mid-eighteenth-century Virginia were fathers of the American Revolution. Perhaps first and foremost; they were also anxious tobacco farmers; harried by a demanding planting cycle; trans-Atlantic shipping risks; and their uneasy relations with English agents. George Washington; Thomas Jefferson; and their contemporaries lived in a world that was dominated by questions of debt from across an ocean but also one that stressed personal autonomy. T. H. Breen's study of this tobacco culture focuses on how elite planters gave meaning to existence. He examines the value-laden relationships--found in both the fields and marketplaces--that led from tobacco to politics; from agrarian experience to political protest; and finally to a break with the political and economic system that they believed threatened both personal independence and honor.
#3879735 in Books Princeton University Press 2001-01-15Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 1.24 x 6.43 x 9.52l; 1.68 #File Name: 0691017328424 pages
Review
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. Divided We StandBy N. J. ParkerThis was a very revealing study of how blacks were systematically kept at the bottom of two industries in the U.S. - dock workers and steel processors. Immigrant groups came into the country at the bottom but gradually worked their way up one group after another. This was not allowed to blacks - if they tried to move ahead they would often be putting their lives in danger. It was a hard book to read - not because of the writing which was excellent - but because of the harshness of the content. In spite of that; I feel it is important for white people to understand that being free from slavery was; in many ways; not the whole story for former slaves.2 of 2 people found the following review helpful. An important story; well told.By Roderick O. MulllettBruce Nelson; a Dartmouth history professor has the seanachi (Irish story teller) gene. The story is of the role played by racial/ethnic identity in the working class. It comences in the nonunion era and comes up to almost the present time. It is told in significant detail; looking at many unions and zeroing in on the longshore unions and Steelworkers. It demonstrates the fludity and yet persistent influence of racial/ethnic identities; Irish identity having been most transformed and the "white" perception of African Americans being the most unchanged. Nelson laments the failure of working class identity to have trumped racial/ethnic identity. He does not address the rightness/wrongness of Affirmative Action today; but his story schould give substantial pause to any belief that ethnocentrism has suddenly ceased to exist.
