farmer.” Hybrid seed corn (price $20 arnbushel) drove out open pollinationrnstrains ($3 a bushel), as standardizationrnbecame the buzzword. At the urging ofrnExtension Agents and bankers, mostrnUnion County farmers either modernizedrnand expanded, or shut down.rnThe social effects were vast. Amongrnwomen, some of the wealthier farmrnwives made the transition to full-timernhomemakers. But most eventually tookrnoff-farm jobs, simply to pay current bills.rnIndustrially processed food and supermarketsrnreplaced home gardens, smokehouses,rnand canning. Hog butchering, arncommunity ritual as late as the 1930’s,rncompletely disappeared, as did otherrninformal methods of economic cooperation.rnChildren vanished as well, as ruralrnfertility tumbled considerably belowrnthat of the state’s urban areas. The agernpyramid for the county’s farm populationrn—healthy as late as 1940—became arngrotesque stick by 1960, dominated byrna bulge among the older categories.rnAdams also carefully documents thernremodeling of rural houses under federalrnguidelines, as suburban designs, completernwith dens, patios, and picnic tables,rndisplaced layouts dedicated tornhome production. By the 1960’s, “thernfarm home was as distantly related to thernfarm enterprise as the urban home wasrnto the [city] family’s workplaces.” Therntowns and villages of Union Countyrndeteriorated over the same decades, asrnindependent stores failed and a sense ofrncommunity dissipated: “Antique andrnjunk shops replaced the once busyrnstores, as if, no longer able to producernanything the nation wanted, people hadrnonly their history left to sell.”rnThe 1980’s destroyed what was left ofrnITnion County’s agrarian society, as thernagricultural credit squeeze, federal policiesrnaimed at “easing out” small-scalernfarms, and a series of bitter winters andrnspringtime floods converged. In the earlyrn1990’s, local industry faded as well,rnwith the county seat’s two significantrnfactories—a shoe plant and a bakery—rnshutting down during the same weekrn(shoe production going, it was rumored,rnto India). Significantly, the constructionrnof nursing homes and the selectionrnof the area as the site for a maximum se-rnTo order these books, (24hrs, 365 days)rnplease call (800) 962-6651 (Ext. 5200)rncurity prison were the only countervailingrneconomic trends. In 1990, 42 percentrnof the personal income of countyrnresidents came directly from governmentrnsources, primarily Social Securityrnand Medicaid. A region known 50 yearsrnearlier for its agriculture and small-scalernindustry had become a ward of therncentral state. Consigned for the timernbeing to tending to the elderly and tornthe incarcerated criminal class of therntriumphant urban-industrial sphere.rnUnion County faced a still cloudierrnfuture in what Adams labels “the post-rnFordist regime of flexible accumulationrnin a globalist economy.”rnThe author describes the failed effortsrnof some Union County residents to defendrntheir small world, ranging from quietrnresistance against “expert” pressure tornadopt “labor-saving technologies” to therncreation of the Peach Festival. But in thernend, the surviving farmers of UnionrnCounty succumbed to the modernistrnmentality, embracing a faith in expertise,rnthe separation of work from leisure,rnand the application of monetaryrnvalue to time. While other futures werernpossible, Adams concludes that UnionrnCounty citizens had neither the intellectualrnmeans nor the public arenasrnthrough which to articulate those options.rnMore fundamentally, they lackedrnthe “powerful counterideology … whichrnbinds religious groups like the Amishrnand the Hutterites,” and which shernbelieves is necessary for the survival ofrnalternative forms of production.rnThere are flaws in Adams’s analysis.rnShe too generously assesses the longtermrnimpact of the Nevy Deal on localrncommunities, and she gives inadequaternrecognition to the role of the “homemaker”rnas a barrier to modernitv in anrnurbanized setting. But these are minorrnannoyances. Adams’s writing is crisp,rnthe details of her narrative are at once familiarrnand remarkable, and the lessonsrnthat she draws are generally correct.rnJane Adams notes that “there appearrnto be particular periods when the commonrnpeople, if they have sufficientrnvision and solidarity, might change therncourse of history.” The reader can plausiblyrnview The Transformation of RuralrnLife as a form of populist scholarship,rnhelping to create the preconditions forrnjust such a period in the future.rnAllan Carlson is the president ofrnThe Rockford Institute and the publisherrno/^ Chronicles.rnCivis Romanus Sumrnby Thomas FlemingrnBeing a Roman Citizenrnby jane F. GardnerrnLondon: Routledge;rn244 pp., $49.95rnWhat does it mean to be a citizen?rnThe answer we give will dependrnon the nation we live in and on the agernof the world in which we find ourselves.rnThe French used to define citizenshiprnnot, as the English and Americans do, byrnthe accident of birthplace, but by descent.rnCitizens were the children of citizens,rnand this ius sanguinis concept hasrnbeen partially restored in France, andrnGovernor Pete Wilson thinks it may be arnpartial answer to the United States’ immigrationrncrisis.rnNo people in the history of the worldrnhas ever wrestled so seriously with thernconcept of citizenship as the Romans.rnWhile most other ancient peoples (e.g.,rnthe Jews, the Athenians) were fiercelyrnparochial in their eagerness to restrictrncitizenship rights, the Romans offeredrntheir allies and subject communities thernpossibility of incorporation into the Romanrncommonwealth. The process tookrntime, usually involving the intermediaternstep of the Latin Right (the right to conductrncommerce and intermarry withrnRoman citizens), and it was facilitatedrnby the plantation of Roman colonies,rnbut Rome’s comparative generosityrnenabled her to create something like arnuniversal empire whose subjects sharedrnin the blessings, as well as the burdens,rnof citizenship.rnThe meaning of Roman citizenshiprnhas been investigated in detail byrnClaude Nicolet in a work translated intornEnglish as The World of the Citizen inrnRepublican Rome (1980). Jane Gardnerrnhas set herself the more limited taskrnof examining groups that lay upon thernfringes: freedmen, women, children,rnmoral reprobates, and “the handicapped.”rnThis approach has a usefulnessrnthat extends beyond these borderlinerngroups, since what is normal canrnsometimes be defined most easily byrnestablishing the limits of normality.rnThe most interesting (at least to me)rnaspect of her work is the discussion ofrnwomen and children, both of whomrnMAY 1995/35rnrnrn