This remarkable collection of essays addresses social, historical, cultural, and labor issues as they affect a Southern plantation. The heart of the book is an examination of a "great experiment" to import Italian laborers to Sunnyside Plantation. From the crucible of tensions that this experiment produced, the reader obtains a concrete understanding of the implications of U.S. immigration policy, of changing labor relations following Reconstruction, and of a minority culture's introduction into the Delta.

Jeannie M. Whayne is professor of history at the University of Arkansas. She is the author of Delta Empire: Lee Wilson and the Transformation of Agriculture in the New South.