An Agrarian Republic: Farming, Antislavery Politics, and Nature Parks in the Civil War Era

North America An Agrarian Republic: Farming, Antislavery Politics, and Nature Parks in the Civil War Era. By adam Wesley dean. chapel Hill: university of north carolina Press, 2015. 256 pp., $29.95, paperback, iSBn 978-1-4696-1991-0.

There are two central arguments in adam Wesley dean's An Agrarian Republic: despite attempts to pit the north and South against one another as the region of industry and the region of Farms, both were regions devoted to agricultural production during the civil War era; and beliefs about proper land use shaped both the political ideologies of the republican Party and debates over slavery and reconstruction. These are valid points, and dean gathers considerable evidence-political speeches and tracts, congressional legislation, letters, travel narratives, and newspaper articles-in order to prove the latter argument,...