Recognized since its publication in 1926 as a watershed in American historiography, Craven’’s study of soil depletion in Virginia and Maryland links elements of Frederick Jackson Turner’’s frontier thesis, causal aspects of the expansion of slavery, and the economics of staple-crop production into a unified view of southern history from the colonial era to the onset of the Civil War. Through case studies Craven assesses the abusive relationship between southern planters and their most valuable and abundant resource – the land.
