| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 112.5

You have not been recognized as a subscriber to the AHR online. About 232 words from this article are provided below; about 551 words remain.

If you are a individual member of the American Historical Association, you may:: • login here if you have already registered for online access.; • Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
• Set up your online account for the first time. AHA members can go to the AHA individual membership section to locate their member numbers.
If you are not a member of the American Historical Association, you can:: • Join the AHA and receive many member benefits including print and electronic issues of the American Historical Review.
• Purchase a research pass to gain two hour access to the entire History Cooperative web site. You will have full access to current issues of the American Historical Review (104.3-present). Note: the Research Pass does not provide access to JSTOR's holdings of the American Historical Review.
Instititutions can:: • Subscribe to this journal and receive print and electronic issues.
• Activate your existing subscription so that we recognize your IP number ranges.

| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 112.5 | The History Cooperative

Lynn A. Nelson. Pharsalia: An Environmental Biography of a Southern Plantation, 1780–1880. Foreword by Paul S. Sutter. Athens: University of Georgia Press. 2007. Pp. xviii, 295. $39.95.
Farming is a complicated business and rather unlike most other endeavors because the producer's attention is focused on something that is alive. Growers have little control over market vagaries, and often less influence over laws regarding property and exchange. But it really is the biological mysteries of raising crops and livestock on purpose that perplex farmers the most—past, present, and future. In Lynn A. Nelson's "environmental biography" of Pharsalia, the relative weights of these variables are apparent.	1
Major Thomas Massie, a soldier of the American Revolution and later aide to Virginia Governor Thomas Nelson, Jr., brought his family to the Tye Valley in the 1790s, and then sold 1,400 acres to his son William in 1816. This became Pharsalia. The name recalled a tragedy—where Caesar defeated Pompey in Thessaly, in 48 B.C., dooming the Roman Republic. For William Massey (1795–1862) farming Pharsalia was more or less a continuous ordeal, as the property had been worked, depleted, and eroded before he took ownership. But looking at the property today, with fields gently rolling east from a magnificent backdrop of the Blue Ridge Mountains, one might appreciate why he gambled against such difficult odds.	. . .

There are about 551 more words in this article. Please log in (or, if you are not yet an authorized user, please go to the User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.