"Katharine A. Burnett's book is a tour-de-force that finally--at last--brings four major fields of study into the same room: nineteenth-century American literary studies, U.S. southern literary and cultural studies, histories of U.S. slavery, and histories of capitalism. Focusing on the economic discourses embedded in all kinds of antebellum southern literary texts, Burnett brilliantly shows how self-styled southern writers built an idea of the region that placed the South at the center of a national and global economic system. Burnett helps us understand the literature and culture of the 'Old South' like no scholar has done before. And, strange as it may seem to say, she also proves that we'll never fully understand modern capitalism until we understand southern literature in all its worldly forms." -- Michael P. Bibler, associate professor of southern studies, Louisiana State University