Winner of the Allan Nevins Prize for best dissertation in American History

"Coclanis has mastered an impressive array of primary and secondary sources....He presents his findings in clear, graceful prose...and proves adept at literary allusions as well as statistical presentation. He masterfully summarizes complex economic theories and historiographical debates, and his own argument is forcefully presented and rigorously defended."--Reviews in American History

"This engaging work is a must for scholars concerned about the economic history of colonial South Carolina or interested in economic development theory and its relationship to the rise and fall of a particular society....His approach is comparative and interdisciplinary; his command of the literature, historical and theoretical, is extraordinary....This is clearly a professional job done for professionals."--Journal of the Early Republic

"A compelling story of the tragic rise and fall of the rice economy of the South Carolina low country....Coclanis has opened the door to scholarly debate at the same time that he clarifies an important set of historical issues. His book, then, represents an exemplary effort to bring cliometric analysis in to the mainstream of historical discourse."--American Historical Review

"A wide-ranging examination of the forces that led to South Carolina'a economic growth and decline."--Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies

"The prose, which is richly allusive, elaborates a precisely constructed, elegantly symmetrical argument set in a global perspective....A brilliant and disturbing book. In scope and style it deserves to stand with some of the works of the justly famous Annales school of French historians."--South Carolina Historical Magazine