Review: Backcountry Ghosts: California Homesteaders and the Making of a Dubious Dream, by Josh Sides

Abstract

Book Review| August 01 2022 Review: Backcountry Ghosts: California Homesteaders and the Making of a Dubious Dream, by Josh Sides Josh Sides. Backcountry Ghosts: California Homesteaders and the Making of a Dubious Dream. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2021. 248 pp. Paperback $29.95. Paul W. Rhode Paul W. Rhode PAUL W. RHODE is professor of economics at the University of Michigan. He has published, with coauthors, Creating Abundance: Biological Innovation and American Agricultural Development (2008); Arresting Contagion: Science, Policy, and Conflicts over Animal Disease Control (2015); and Capital in the Nineteenth Century (2019). His work has won the Cole Prize, the Jones Prize, and the Sharlin Award. He is currently writing about the adoption of the automobile in California, among other research topics. Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar California History (2022) 99 (3): 81–83. https://doi.org/10.1525/ch.2022.99.3.81 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Paul W. Rhode; Review: Backcountry Ghosts: California Homesteaders and the Making of a Dubious Dream, by Josh Sides. California History 1 August 2022; 99 (3): 81–83. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/ch.2022.99.3.81 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentCalifornia History Search A central question in California’s agricultural history is why the state didn’t grow like the midwestern states, where diversified owner-occupied farms predominated. Many midwestern family farms were born from the Homestead Act signed by Abraham Lincoln in 1862. The Act was intended to promote Jefferson’s dream of widespread ownership of private property, by, in Lincoln’s words, “cutting up the wild lands into parcels, so that every poor man may have a home.” We know that this form of land acquisition was less common and less central in California history than elsewhere. But why did the state’s farming develop so differently? Related questions ask whether the forces leading California to follow a different path slowed its growth over the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. And how did (or does) this distinctive history shape the state’s political, social, and economic structure today? How has it affected, perhaps adversely, the welfare of... You do not currently have access to this content.