In this book, Timothy Silver traces the effects of English settlement on South Atlantic ecology, showing how three cultures - Indian, European, and African - interacted with and were, in turn, affected by, their changing environment. In assessing such ecological changes, Silver pays particular attention to regional variations, explaining how local geography and settlement patterns influenced the environment. And although his focus is the English South, Silver also shows us how economic and ecological developments in Europe, the Caribbean, and elsewhere frequently dictated how South Atlantic colonists used their land. Consequently, his book provides an engaging and detailed look at the complex relationships between humans, plants, and animals in a unique and diverse region of North America.

In Poor Whites of the Antebellum South, Charles C. Bolton gives a distinct voice to one of the most elusive groups in the society of the Old South. Bolton's detailed examination reveals much about the lives of these landless white tenants and laborers and their relationship to yeoman farmers, black slaves, free blacks and elite whites. Providing a provocative analysis of the failure of the Jeffersonian "yeoman ideal" of democracy in white-majority areas, this book also shows how poor whites represented a more significant presence on the political, economic, and social landscape than previously had been thought. Looking at two specific regions--the "settled" central piedmont of North Carolina and the "frontier" of northeast Mississippi--Bolton describes how poor whites played an important, though circumscribed, role in the local economy. Dependent on temporary employment, they represented a troubling presence in a society based on the principles of white independence and black slavery. Although perceived by southern leaders as a threat, poor whites, Bolton argues, did not form a political alliance with either free or enslaved blacks because of numerous factors including white racism, kinship ties, religion, education, and mobility. A concluding discussion of the crisis of 1860-61 examines the rejection of secession by significant numbers of poor whites, as well as the implications for their future as the Old South turned toward the new. Poor Whites of the Antebellum South sheds light on a group often neglected in southern history. It is an important contribution that will be of interest to all students and historians of the American South.

The third edition of Southern Women relays the historical narrative of both black and white women in the patriarchal South. Covering primarily the years between 1800 and 1865, it shows the strengths and varied experiences of these women--on plantations, small farms, in towns and cities, in the Deep South, the Upper South, and the mountain South. It offers fascinating information on family life, sexuality, and marria≥ reproduction and childreÅ education and religion; women and work; and southern women and the Confederacy. Southern Women: Black and White in the Old South, Third Edition distills and incorporates recent scholarship by historians. It presents a well-written, more complicated, multi-layered picture of Southern women's lives than has ever been written about before--thanks to its treatment of current, relevant historiographical debates. The book also: Includes new scholarship published since the second edition appeared Pays more attention to women in the Deep South, especially the experiences of those living in Louisiana and Mississippi Is part of the highly successful American History Series The third edition of Southern Women: Black and White in the Old South will serve as a welcome supplementary text in college or community-college-level survey courses in U.S., Women's, African-American, or Southern history. It will also be useful as a reference for graduate seminars or colloquia.