Published in 1954, this survey of Georgia agriculture is chronologically divided into three sections. “The End of the Golden Age, 1850–1865,” describes the last decade of antebellum agriculture before the overthrow of the plantation system. “The Long Depression, 1865–1900,” tells of the search for new ways to restore prosperity to Georgia's struggling agricultural system. And “The Revolutionary New Century, 1900–1950,” illustrates how agriculture underwent rapid development due to mechanization, diversifi cation, and application of scientific methods. Range concludes each section with his interpretations, emphasizing the impossibility of separating politics and culture in an economy based predominantly on agriculture, as much of the south was during this century.

This examination of cultural change challenges the conventional view of the Georgia Pine Belt as an unchanging economic backwater. Its postbellum economy evolves from self-sufficiency to being largely dependent upon cotton. Before the Civil War, the Piney Woods easily supported a population of mostly yeomen farmers and livestock herders. After the war, a variety of external forces, spearheaded by Reconstruction-era New South boosters, invaded the region, permanently altering the social, political, and economic landscape in an attempt to create a South with a diversified economy. The first stage in the transformation -- railroad construction and a revival of steamboating -- led to the second stage: sawmilling and turpentining. The harvest of forest products during the 1870s and 1880s created new economic opportunities but left the area dependent upon a single industry that brought deforestation and the decline of the open-range system within a generation.