"How paintings were made--in the most literal sense--is an important but largely unknown aspect of the story of American art. This book, like the authors' previous volume on American painting techniques from the colonial period to 1860, is based on descriptions of the materials and methods that painters used, as found in artists' notebooks, painting manuals, magazines, suppliers' catalogues, letters, diaries, books, and interviews. In interpreting this evidence, the authors have made use of their experience as conservators who have treated many important American paintings."--Book jacket.

This fourth volume of Dr. Fussell's bibliography covers the period from the foundation of the Royal Agricultural Society of England to the agricultural repercussions of the abolition of the Corn Laws. The twenty years featured in this volume saw the publication of an enormous number of farming tracts and studies, reflecting the spread of the agricultural revolution across England and the final creation of the present-day system of agricultural production. As in the earlier volumes in this series, the author's thorough coverage of this literature brings together a wide collection of source material and thus makes an important contribution to historical studies. The growing demand for cheaper food, that eventually led to the abolition of the Corn Laws, the effects of the potato blight of 1844-45, and the famine in Ireland, the introduction of phosphates, and the increased importance of agricultural education -- these are the subjects reflected in the agricultural literature of the period, and Dr. Fussell's work helps document the consequent changes in the agricultural background in the vital years that led to England becoming a food-importing nation.

In this exciting study of the communities on both sides of the Savannah River in Georgia and South Carolina, J. William Harris explores two great ironies of American history—the South’s commitment to a liberty supported by slavery and its attempt to maintain the status quo with a war that undermined southern society. Relying on strong research in quantifiable data as well as manuscript records, Harris examines why white southerners—most of whom did not own slaves—united in a long, bloody war to preserve the institution. He argues that slaveowners relied on an ideology of liberty, a potential for social mobility, and a web of personal relationships between classes to contain white class divisions and ensure control over the black population. The strains of war, Harris shows, dissolved these bonds of community and made Confederate victory impossible, forever changing southern society.