Coclanis here charts the economic and social rise and fall of Charleston and the surrounding South Carolina low country. His study analyzes the interaction of forces on the city and countryside, examining the effect of factors on the region's economy from its colonial beginnings to its collapse in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

This book examines the economic rise and fall of one small, but intriguing part of the American South, the low country of South Carolina.

Much may be gleaned from this elegantly crafted essay on the Carolina lowcountry. It is the best-written book of regional economic history that I have ever read, and it compares favorably with the best in history at large."--William and Mary Quarterly