Emily Pawley's The Nature of the Future is a provocative and engaging study of the effects of capitalism on Northern agrarian society, looking specifically at New York State from the 1830s to the 1850s. Pawley persuasively shows that agricultural innovations during this period established “the foundation for the practices that shape the modern landscape,” despite the social discord and economic volatility that these changes engendered (218). This work of agricultural history has remarkable reach, encompassing the historical interplay of agriculture, capitalism, natural science, mechanization, finance, social conflict, identity building, electoral politics, and the commercialization of print and popular culture. In short, Pawley has crafted a vivid and multi-faceted narrative that will be of great interest to students and scholars of the social, cultural, and economic history of rural antebellum America.The book begins with discussion of the profit-seeking landlord class of the early 1800s who, inspired by British agricultural reformers and enriched by land speculation in western New York, laid the groundwork of agricultural improvement. Over subsequent decades and culminating in the Anti-Rent Wars of the 1840s, tenants challenged their domain by appropriating control of local politics and the growing body of new agricultural associations. Their resistance generated a more diverse and class-stratified demographic—who Pawley calls “agricultural improvers”—with a vested interest in agricultural innovation for purposes of commercial profit and knowledge acquisition. Despite this democratization across class lines, Pawley acknowledges the persistence of white patriarchal structures of power that made improvement possible by relying on hidden sources of labor of certain groups, like women, Irish immigrants, or African Americans.Some of the book's most delicious tidbits lie in the rich tapestry of social experiences that Pawley uncovers. She tells stories of failure, like Nicholas Biddle ruined by the “mulberry bubble,” a speculative agricultural and financial enterprise that resulted in the mass planting of multicaulis trees mistakenly thought to be an ideal habitat for silkworm proliferation. By contrast, there were revealing successes, like Zadock Pratt in the Catskills who shifted from cultivating hemlock trees on account of deforestation and forged a new future in butter production, generating “an inherently purposeful specialized landscape” to suit his designs (136). This illuminating archival record reveals the contingent and risky nature of these ventures and their potential to have broad impact on regional production and consumption.Pawley also dazzles with her nuanced analysis of the “farmer” as a social construct, which diverse interests appropriated in order to lay claim to social respectability. Politicians and wealthy urbanites fashioned themselves as farmers in “rural retirement” in a countryside idealized for “mental cultivation” and “republican virtue” (44). They touted this performance by participating in agricultural societies and through acts of conspicuous consumption. Despite the spirit of unity that the label “farmer” intended to convey, Pawley's erudite analysis uncovers the racial, ethnic, and class conflict embedded within the social hierarchy of agricultural improvement as well as the social permeability that complicated the authenticity of distinct urban and rural identities.A culture of experimentation, the book shows, was a decisive element facilitating technological and agricultural innovation. With profit marking the success of their new ventures, improvers developed new systems of accounting and numeracy along with new genres of economic writing to record their trial data and circulate their findings. Pawley describes new instruments, from pomological lists of fruit “varieties” to analytic tables charting the chemical composition of organic matter, that modernized agriculture by providing systems of classification and industry standards to structure agricultural practices and provide legibility for the market. In this process of developing new languages of documentation and taxonomy, new businesses and occupations emerged: nurserymen, implement makers, agricultural chemists, and advertisers among others.The Nature of the Future distinguishes this period of agricultural innovation from its predecessors by its emphasis on the aesthetics of display. Pawley points to the fairgrounds as an important site for improvers to perform agrarian identities via spectacular displays and competitions, where they showcased their produce, livestock, machinery, and salable goods. Similarly, innovators staged theatrical public displays of their experimental trials, particularly of new machinery like reapers and threshers, to demonstrate the success of their wares. Such displays constituted a new form of advertising, allowing for dissemination of knowledge across an ever-expanding system of commercial networks. Moreover, the proliferation of agricultural societies spawned a new generation of agricultural journals, which became a vital instrument for the transmission of new ideas. Pawley thus shows that the economic success of agricultural improvement during this period hinged on the commercialization and expansion of print and popular culture.Pawley's meticulous study affirms that it was human interventions, experimentation, and diffusion of knowledge that transformed and circumscribed the agricultural landscape of Northern rural society. In response to the market revolution, improvers fostered and expanded social networks of exchange and trade. By re-imagining the very identity of the “farmer,” the nature of agrarian labor, and the landscape itself, agricultural improvers ushered in a new era of modernity and industrial agriculture. They tied their new agricultural products and concepts to the world of commerce by quantifying the value of products for market and fixing varieties to standardize shape, color, and flavor for consumers. Still, Pawley points out the cracks imperiling this culture of advancement. Vulnerable to human error and malicious intent, improvers’ efforts to valuate and monetize agricultural commodities at times fell victim to deception, prompting improvers to devise new strategies to counter fraud and uncertainty.While I give the book high praise, I offer one constructive critique: though Pawley briefly acknowledges that the improvers’ pursuits had the effect of “overwriting a landscape” formerly occupied by Indigenous peoples (137), the underpinnings of dispossession and violence underlying the land speculation and transformation of the landscape merit greater foregrounding in the narrative. Nonetheless, this concise and elegantly written monograph makes an excellent contribution to the social, cultural, and economic historiography of New England as well as antebellum America more broadly.