Preface to Peasantry

A social scientist and public intellectual, Arthur Raper (1899-1979) was a white southerner who advocated unpopular liberal solutions to combat the shortcoming of southern race relations. Originally published in 1936, Preface to Peasantry confirmed Raper's inclusion in the Chapel Hill southern Regionalist movement of the 1930s and '40s and his evocation of New Deal federal planning in the creation of social policy. The result of a seven-year investigation into social problems stemming from African American emigration from the rural south and the resulting turnover in farm tenancy, Raper's work focuses on the agricultural depression of Greene County, Georgia, bereft of departing black sharecroppers, and the contrasting economic stability of Macon County, Georgia, were the population had gone without significant upheaval. Adroitly juxtaposing themes of history and sociology, Preface to Peasantry is a text both descriptive of a broad phenomenon and prescriptive of policymaking to address the destruction of rural American life. The edition features a new introduction from Louis Mazzari to contextualize Raper's life and work and document the reception of Preface to Peasantry.