Book details how rural places reshaped urban sprawl

“Bulldozer Revolutions: A Rural History of the Metropolitan South” tells the story of a southern metropolis. Local boosters, gentlemen farmers, historical preservationists and nature-seeking suburbanites abandoned cities to live in the countryside during the 20th century from Washington, D.C., to Houston.

Author Andrew Baker, a history professor at Texas A&M University-Commerce, follows the landscape of metropolitan countryside communities, combining rural, environmental and agricultural history. Throughout the rural south, a refashioned landscape was celebrated as suburban subdivisions grew, obscuring legacies of racism and rural poverty.

“Bulldozer Revolutions” uses historical records, oral history and environmental politics to explore the relationship between the cities and countryside in metropolitan fringe zones.