“As a master narrative, From British Peasants to Colonial American Farmers succeeds in elegantly synthesizing a massive body of literature, probing the relationships between economy, demography, and society, and in vigorously shaping and inspiring debate on the formation of American society for years to come.” — Left History
“A significant contribution. . . . Kulikoff’s book provides solid evidence to suggest that 'independent' American farmers owed as much to the cultural legacy of peasant life as to increased access to land.” — Journal of Southern History
“Kulikoff’s study will please readers with its erudite survey of important scholarship, but it may also provoke continuing arguments. Both are commendable accomplishments.” — Journal of American History
“The first volume of Kulikoff’s larger project, a history of American farmers to 1900, this book offers a smart synthesis of the remarkable amount of scholarly literature on seventeenth- and eighteenth-century rural society that has come into print in the past two decades. . . . We can only anticipate — and knowing Kulikoff, be confident — that it will have the scope and authority of this impressive present volume.” — Georgia Historical Quarterly
“Kulikoff has undertaken a project of enormous value to historical inquiry, a multi-volume study of the development of farmers through the end of the nineteenth century.” — American Studies
“Kulikoff’s integration of materials from women’s history into a general synthesis of economic life in colonial America is among the best yet written. . . . [His] description of the effect of the Revolutionary War on rural America is better done than any previous account. . . . [This is a] 'master narrative' of early America.” — American Historical Review
“Readers will benefit from this wide-ranging and detailed treatment of North American social history. We should eagerly await future installments in this project.” — Agricultural History Review
“[This book] evidences Kulikoff’s mastery of the scholarship on farm life and land use across four centuries and on two continents. The result is a work of awesome scope.” — Reviews in American History
“[This book] lays the ground for an understanding of the centrality of independent farm households in the Revolutionary and early national periods. . . . As an introduction to the early history of American rural society, Allan Kulikoff’s account, with its clarity and perceptiveness, is in many ways unsurpassed.” — William and Mary Quarterly
“An extraordinary book, rich in detail and deep in analysis. . . . [with] an exquisite prologue.” — CHOICE
