Agrarian Kentucky

by Thomas D. Clark

For subsistence farmers in eastern Kentucky, wealthy horse owners in the central Bluegrass, and tobacco growers in Western Kentucky, land was, and continues to be, one of the commonwealth's greatest sources of economic growth. It is also a source of nostalgia for a people devoted to tradition, a characteristic that has significantly influenced Kentucky's culture, sometimes to the detriment of education and development.

As timely now as when it was first published, Thomas D. Clark's classic history of agrarianism prepares readers for a new era that promises to bring rapid change to the land and the people of Kentucky.

152 pages, Paperback

First published December 28, 1977

Reviews

[Sherry Chandler · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book tends to turn into a diatribe that musters statistics to prove how agrarianism kept Kentucky in the backwash of history educationally, economically, and politically. All of which is true but I enjoyed the book more when it worked in closeup rather than panorama. The parts I enjoyed most dealt with the early settlement years and with the literary culture of the state. I even found a Kentucky novelist I'd never heard of. I was also struck by the many ways in which slavery retarded the state. In education, for instance, those who pushed for educational reforms also tended to be abolitionists and therefore thus distrusted by pro-slavery voters.

I am facinated by Kentucky's history but reading it always makes me sad. Such waste.