Agrarian Elites American Slaveholders And Southern Italian Landowners, 1815-1861

Between 1815 and 1861, American slaveholders and southern Italian landowners presided over the economic and social life of two predominantly agricultural regions, the U.S. South and Italy's Mezzogiorno. Enrico Dal Lago ingeniously compares these agrarian elites, demonstrating how the study of each enhances our understanding of the other as well as of their shared nineteenth-century world. Dal Lago charts the parallel developments of plantations and latifondi in relation to changes in the world economy. He also examines the spread of "paternalistic" models of family relations and of slave and free-labor management that accompanied the rise of southern propertied classes in the United States and Italy. He shows that the most progressive members of both elites combined the pursuit of profit with the implementation of different types of "contractual" practices in dealing with their workforces. Both elites also used their power to political advantage, opposing the intervention of their national governments in local affairs. The search for ever-better protection of their respective interests in slaveholding and landed property led ultimately to their support for the creation of two nations, the Confederate State of America and the Kingdom of Italy, both in 1861. With its pathbreaking approach and singular and comparative insights, Agrarian Elites will inform not only American and Italian studies but also the very practice of comparative history.Dal Lago, Enrico is the author of 'Agrarian Elites American Slaveholders And Southern Italian Landowners, 1815-1861', published 2005 under ISBN 9780807130872 and ISBN 0807130877.