The political economy of the cotton South : households, markets, and wealth in the nineteenth century / Gavin Wright.

This text contains black and white illustrations, maps, and economic tables, which provide additional information regarding the financial and geographic points made within the text.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 185-195) and index.

1. Introduction: Models, economists, and slavery -- The argument summarized --

2. The structure of the cotton-slave economy: The rise of cotton and North American slavery -- The cotton South in 1860 -- The distribution of wealth in the cotton South -- Wealth distribution in historical perspective -- Slaves, wealth, and political economy: the paradoxes of southern society --

3. The microeconomics of plantation and farm: Slavery and the scale of operations -- Slavery and the choice of crops -- Self-sufficiency and risk -- Economics of scale under slavery -- Slavery: labor as a commodity --

4. The pace of progress in the cotton South: The growth of cotton demand -- Productivity in cotton and other crops -- Slavery and nonagricultural economic activity -- Slavery, immigration, and the cities -- Conclusion --

5. On making economic sense of cotton, slavery, and the civil war: Direct economic conflicts between North and South -- The profitability of slavery once more -- Making economic sense of the politics of slavery -- Reopening the slave trade as a test case -- Conclusion: northern expansion and southern psychology --

6. After the war: The rise of tenancy -- The abandonment of self-sufficiency -- The evolution of tenancy -- Reprise: the cotton South in historical perspective.

"The impact of cotton and slavery in the nineteenth century American South was so dramatic and enduring that neither the region nor the nation has yet escaped from the influence of that era of regional prominence. This book examines the historical background, the origins of the economic structure and institutions of the Cotton South, and the ways in which they evolved and changed over the course of the nineteenth century. Professor Wright perceives an essential unity to the century as a whole and argues that both before and after the Civil War the pace of world cotton demand was the principal dynamic force. Formal economic analysis is combined with efforts to place the institution of slavery in historical perspective. Within this framework the author reassesses some of the standard questions of Southern history: the profitability of slavery before the Civil War, the overproduction of cotton after the Civil War, the effects of slavery on regional progress, and the causes of the war. This study goes beyond economic history narrowly defined, pursuing the same logic into the realm of class relationships and political behavior. A new "economic interpretation" of Southern political behavior and the Civil War is proposed, one which avoids the oversimplifications and fallacies of earlier interpretations." -- From the book jacket.