This first full-length study of the cattle tick eradication program in the United States offers a new perspective on the fate of the yeomanry in the twentieth-century South during a period when state and federal governments were both increasing and centralizing their authority.

Claire Strom is Rapetti-Trunzo Professor of History at Rollins College and editor of the journal "Agricultural History." She is the author of "Profiting from the Plains: The Great Northern Railway" and "Corporate Development of the American West."