A Rural Studies Bibliography (Second Edition)

Excerpts from the Introduction: The study of rural life in the United States does not originate from a single scholarly discipline, and the literature does not fit neatly within a cohesive theoretical orientation. As a subfield of sociology, rural sociology comes closest to providing a home base for rural research. The disciplines of political science, economics, agriculture, anthropology, women's studies, education, geography, and even engineering have made substantive contributions to a body of knowledge which we can refer to as rural studies. While it is not unique for contributions to a body of knowledge to come from several disciplines, the diversity of contributors to rural scholarship is clearly evident. This annotated bibliography illustrates a variation in background and perspective yet it also attempts to build upon similarities and differences among the authors, hoping to bind this knowledge together as a distinctive rural studies community. This bibliography is intended to be a research tool. The items are presented alphabetically by author, and the index is organized as a cross-reference tool. Each entry has been indexed with a principal keyword, and more specific keywords are indexed when the annotated item has something of substance to contribute to related areas.