Ilana's Journal Week 23: Is Nonfiction Art?--and some praise for Malcolm Gladwell [ Edited ]

[IlanaSimons]

I teach a college writing class in which we spend a lot of the year studying Malcolm Gladwell, who’s a big hero of mine. Gladwell is a The New Yorker writer and contemporary non-fiction author who has had two bestsellers, Blink and The Tipping Point. Although he writes non-fiction, I consider Gladwell to be as much an artist—a creator of unique structures—as a novelist is. That is, telling a non-fiction story is still telling a story; it demands an affective, imaginative thruline. This week, I’m interested in what you’d call a “good story” on the page—and what role non-fiction might play your life.

Many critics credit Gladwell with inventing a genre—a type of book that publishers today call the “idea book.” The “idea book” is a popular-seller that sorts through obscure academic research to deliver a lesson that has the punch to change our day-to-day lives. Idea books include Dubner and Levitt’s Freakonimics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything, which sifts through the complex research in economics to help us think in fresh ways about things close to home, like crime, parenting, and buying our houses. Another idea book is Chip and Dan Heath’s Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die, which draws on detailed lessons from psychology and business to teach us about communicating well with people around us.

The best authors of “idea books” are artists, I think, because their main job is to tell a story that hits us with power, surprise, and even emotional resonance. Malcolm Gladwell works as a scavenger of sorts: He heads out into the chaos of information that our fast-paced research, televisions, and computers make available to just about everyone these days. And he sifts through the data to find the most relevant, generalizable story behind it all. He tells the humane message that lies behind the zillions of studies in psychology or economics that universities produce each year. In this sense, he’s like the postmodernist’s wise man on the hill—able to locate meaning in a mess of too much information.

Because Gladwell visited my class at The New School last semester, I know a little bit about how he writes a story. In some instances, he gets an idea about something he wants to write about, like the fact that luck or chance plays a bigger role in our lives than we often admit. As he conducts interviews, he constructs an effective thesis. Finding a thesis involves creation: He’s got to draw an efficient thruline through what he hears. He’ll then spend a lot of time picking the 2-3 research studies or human interest stories that best bring this new idea to light. He’ll arrange these stories in a chapter, so that they lead us, with a sense of interest and surprise, through a new trail of thought, delivering the reader to a sense of revelation. A sense of revelation is what makes a new idea stick.

So, to say it quick: Some of my favorite artists write “nonfiction.” Here’s one shortlist of artistic “nonfiction” writers: Nietzsche, Jean Paul Sartre, Gladwell, Plato, Roland Barthes, Susan Sontag, Larry Lockridge. These writers seem to be able to look at massive mounds of data and sculpt good stories from it all. That’s creativity.

This inventive aspect of nonfiction has been a hotbed issue lately. Last year, James Frey’s memoir, A Million Little Pieces, was blasted for its lies. This book, people said, was fiction, not memoir. So I’m interested in your own experience: What do you think marks the dividing line between a great nonfiction narrative (self help books, biography, philosophy, etc.) and a good novel?

Are there any non-fiction writers who have been as delicious in your reading life as some novelists or poets, and why?

For the opposing side: What do you think fiction gives you that no other type of writing can?

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-Ilana
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Message Edited by IlanaSimons on 11-02-2007 07:42 AM

[Jessica]

Hi everyone,

I have to jump into this thread -- I'm a huge fan of nonfiction. At the book store, I often choose interesting nonfiction over the latest bestseller.

More specifically, I gravitate to those in-depth socio-histories of single items: Salt, Snowmen, Pencils, the number Zero, Honey, Red Hair, Ostriches, or Ice.

Talk about storytellers! Ilana has hit the nail on the head. Who knew that reading about salt or ostrich feathers for 300 pages could be so exciting?

As far as comparing these to fiction, that's a complex question. It's too obvious to point out that one is full of factual events and the other isn't.

I guess I don't distinguish nonfiction from fiction much. With these types of nonfiction books specifically, the "truth is stranger than fiction" adage applies, my imagination is stretched, and at the end of the story arc I'm satisfied. (And as a bonus, I'm left with a bunch of trivia in my head...)

[Everyman]

Provocative questions!

I'll talk about my favorite nonfiction writers in another post, so as not to go on too long here. But as to whether nonfiction is art:

As with many questions, the issue comes down to one of definition. (I still remember vividly my high school debate coach's mantra: he who defines the terms wins the debate.)

Who is an artist? What is art?

I'm not going to propose an answer, but I'll follow the pattern of one of my favorite nonfiction writers who you also included in your list, Plato, and ask some questions which might help define the answer.

I'm a lawyer. When I go into trial, I have to work with proven or provable facts. I am forbidden from inventing facts (and can be severely punished if I do). But I can use those facts to weave a story which I hope will persuade a judge or jury to see the facts in the light most favorable to my client. Is that art? Am I an artist?

For a hobby, am a woodworker. I design and build furniture, household items, toys, etc. Art? Artist?

Let's take these BNBC boards. Was your initial post, Ilana, art? Are any of your posts here art? Are all, many, some, a few, or none of the posts made in the book discussions here art? Are any of the posters on BNBC artists?

I tend not to read bloggers, but I know many people do. Are blogs art? Can they be art?

Some people see some graffiti on the subway trains of New York as art. Some see it simply and purely as vandalism. Can graffiti be art?

Is rap music art, and are rap musicians artists?

In addition to the question whether a nonfiction writer can be an artist being a matter of definition, it is also clear to me that art is a matter of judgment and opinion, not of fact. On one of the old BNU boards there was an extensive discussion about whether Duchamp "Fountain" was art. Let us just say that the discussion was heated but changed nobody's mind. Some posters were adamantly supportive of its being art; some were equally adamantly opposed to considering it art.

Having said all this, I guess I actually am ready to offer an answer to the question "Can a work of nonfiction be art?"

The only meaningful answer, I fear, is that if you think it is, then for you it is, and if not, not. Beyond that, I am neither willing nor able to go.

[Everyman]

A sort of supplement to my last question.

The Greeks and Romans created some of what we consider the greatest art works the Western world has ever seen.

But their concept of art was quite different from ours. They didn't see vases painters, sculptors, etc. as artists in the way we tend to. Rather, they considered all skilled crafts, all "making things," together under the common term "techne" which included not only carving statutes and designing and building buildings, but also making shoes. Aristotle discusses this in the Nichomachean Ethics, especially Book VI. In Chapter 3 (1139a) he says that "the states by virtue of which the soul possesses truth by way of affirmation or denial are five in number, i.e. art [techne], scientific knowledge, practical wisdom, philosophical wisdom, intuitive reason; we do not include judgment and opinion because in these we may be mistaken." Rouse translation. In Chapter 4 (1140a) he differentiates between "the reasoned state of capacity to act" and "the reasoned state of capacity to make." The reasoned state of capacity to make is what he calls techne, and Rouse translates as art: "Now since architecture is an art and is essentially a reasoned state of capacity to make, and there is neither any art that is not such a state nor any such state that is not an art, art is identical with a state of capacity to make, involving a true course of reasoning."

But writing, whether rhetoric, poetry, drama, or whatever, was not considered part of art at all. It was something quite different, and sometimes viewed with great suspicion -- Plato famously banished the poets from his ideal society in the Republic. They were not states of virtue by which the soul possesses truth, but were judgment and opinion, in which we may be mistaken.

[Everyman]

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IlanaSimons wrote:
...What do you think marks the dividing line between a great nonfiction narrative (self help books, biography, philosophy, etc.) and a good novel?

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Thinking about this question and working on a response, I think you have lumped several different forms of nonfiction together. It turns out that I am finding that there is not so much a clear delineation between non-fiction and fiction as there is a continuum.

My first answer was going to be that nonfiction contains only facts which can be verified as being true (and no, I'm not going to get into an argument here about what truth is!) But I realized that this was inadequate.

Some nonfiction works do, indeed, try to present only pure, straightforward facts: my graduate school statistics textbooks, for one example; Nansen's Farthest North, his report of the voyages of the Fram, for another.

Other purportedly nonfiction works contain a mixture of pure fact with some interpretation, speculation, or opinion. Most modern (and some not so modern; it goes back to Plutarch if not earlier) biographers, for example, do not limit themselves solely to facts but include the author's interpretations or opinions about those facts (or in some cases, most famously in biographies of Shakespeare, rank speculation based on virtually no verifiable facts). Philosophy may contain no verifiable facts at all, but may be solely opinion and argument. In that philosophy books are pure invention, they have much more in common with fiction than with most nonfiction, but still they are clearly intended to be nonfiction.

Nor is fiction pure invention. Almost all fiction is grounded in at least some facts. Austen presented many verifiable facts about daily life in Regency England, about customs, modes of travel, cities she knew, etc. I have seen historians who have relied on her descriptions of daily life to flesh out their historical interpretations of her era. Dickens's London is almost as historically accurate as Pepys's. Historical fiction is a blend of fiction and fact, some authors tending more on the side of the facts with some fictional elements, others tending to build a story based on facts but with large chunks of derivative invention.

On the far end of fiction I would say is imaginative fiction, fiction that bears as little relationship to verifiable fact or experienced reality as possible. Dr. Seuss lives here, along with Alice in Wonderland, the Wizard of Oz, Harry Potter, and most of the books based on dragon worlds, such as Patricia C. Wrede's wonderful Enchanted Forest series.

That is not, I hasten to say, that there is not truth in these books. There is a vast difference between fact and truth. Both truth and anti-truth can live anywhere on the continuum, from the most non-fictional to the most fictional.

So. I don't think one can draw a clear line and say "all books on this side should be considered nonfiction and all books on this side should be considered fiction." I think virtually every book (with the possible exception of my statistics textbook and dictionaries of C++ programming functions) contains elements of nonfiction and elements of fiction. As with pornography, I think we all have a sense, more or less vague, as to the difference between them, but I doubt that any two of us would draw the line in exactly the same place.

[Everyman]

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IlanaSimons wrote:
Are there any non-fiction writers who have been as delicious in your reading life as some novelists or poets, and why?

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Oh, heavens yes. As to the why, that's hard; why is any book "delicious" to us? Why do I find Austen delicious while others find her prissy and dull?

The list of nonfiction writers I have found "delicious" is lengthy, but a few of its notables I can think off off the top of my head are:

Of the ancients:
Plato (I definitely agree with you there)
Euclid (a strange choice perhaps, but I find his work with its crystal clear thinking, beautiful logic, and wonderful sequencing of developing thought, a pure delight to read and work my way through)
Plutarch
Herodotus (but not Thucydides, who I enjoy reading but don't find "delicious" in the same way as I find Herodotus, whose penchant for gossip is simply delectable)

Of the more modern:
Charles Lamb
William Hazlitt's occasional essays; less so his criticism, which though I enjoy reading it, is hardly "delicious."
E. V. Lucas (barely known today, but a wonderful essayist)
Robert Louis Stevenson's essays
G. K. Chesterton's essays (try his "A Piece of Chalk"
P. D. James's fragments of autobiography
Detrich Bonhoeffer
Eric Blair (George Orwell), particularly some of his reviews and essays; his essay "Shooting an Elephant" is one of the most extraordinary pieces of nonfiction writing I know, and I re-read his "Politics and the English Language" often, and, sadly, with increasing despair as it becomes clearer and clearer how accurately he saw the future of our political discourse.
E. B. White - tied with Orwell for my favorite nonfiction writer of all time

That's a short list of some of my all-time favorite nonfiction writers.

[Jessica]

After reading Everyman's post, I'm ready to say that everything is Art. I'm one of those who believe that Duchamp's Bicycle Wheel and Fountain are indeed Art.

These days (I say that with all Postmodern trappings in mind) questions of high or low culture are rarely answered, they're ignored in a very cool way. Low culture adopts high culture ... the opposite happens too. Juxtaposition -- of things or of ideas -- feels like the norm today (ex: a sit-com posing as a reality show).

Cogito, Ergo, Sum. Maybe Duchamp's was chanelling this when he looked at a urinal and saw Art. Everything has meaning, is a signifier, etc.

Speaking of Postmodernism, here's an interesting article about the end of it.

[IlanaSimons]

Thanks for entering in, Jessica. I have been fascinated by Salt and Cod, though I have not read them yet. I’ve been (yes) jealous that Mark Kurlansky can sell satisfying, long narratives about such seemingly simple objects to his publishers. That's storytelling; it’s got to be. Now you've added books to my list, about snowmen, pencils, honey, hair, ostriches, and ice.

It's a funny trend that publishing is in: selling books that give the otherwise-boring a counterintuitive punch.

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Jessica wrote:
Hi everyone,

I have to jump into this thread -- I'm a huge fan of nonfiction. At the book store, I often choose interesting nonfiction over the latest bestseller.

More specifically, I gravitate to those in-depth socio-histories of single items: Salt, Snowmen, Pencils, the number Zero, Honey, Red Hair, Ostriches, or Ice.

Talk about storytellers! Ilana has hit the nail on the head. Who knew that reading about salt or ostrich feathers for 300 pages could be so exciting?

As far as comparing these to fiction, that's a complex question. It's too obvious to point out that one is full of factual events and the other isn't.

I guess I don't distinguish nonfiction from fiction much. With these types of nonfiction books specifically, the "truth is stranger than fiction" adage applies, my imagination is stretched, and at the end of the story arc I'm satisfied. (And as a bonus, I'm left with a bunch of trivia in my head...)

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[IlanaSimons]

Everyman,
Your discussion about the spectrum that runs from fiction to nonfiction, and your argument that even philosophy is a story based on imagination and biased perspective, strikes me as true (and well said).

Message Edited by IlanaSimons on 11-02-2007 07:19 PM

[Everyman]

I realize that I went off on a bit of a tangent from what Ilana was actually talking about.

I most definitely do consider non-fiction writing to be every bit as much art as fiction writing.

Back in my teaching days I taught a course in expository writing, and resented more than a little the then prevailing attitude among many writing teachers that "creative writing" was restricted to fiction writing and that somehow expository writing wasn't creative. In my opinion, it takes every bit as much, if not more, creativity to write a compelling, believable, moving story within the constraints of a given body of facts that must be adhered to as it does to do so without any external limitations on what one can write about.

[KathyS]

Everyman, I don't think your exception "feelings" comes from "lack of creativity", or your resentment that makes you feel that "lack of being accepted' as an equal to those that claim creativity. I think your feelings come from those feelings that there is lack of value given to you, in what you have created. Non Fiction, you've described to perfection. I can't quibble with any of this.

I think that creativity comes from a mind that isn't 'always' logical. Not always on the same plane of the rational. The logical mind zeros in on the substance of the writing. The believability of writing is, and has to be there, no matter what the case, fiction/non fiction, but when you deal with concrete facts, it becomes, (I assume) a narrative of facts...in an orderly line of believable consequences. You do create, but there is a difference of this term.

The creativity that 'you' may see, is how it's fashioned to make it totally believable, as fact. I'm just surmising these two theories.

Kathy

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Everyman wrote:
I realize that I went off on a bit of a tangent from what Ilana was actually talking about.

I most definitely do consider non-fiction writing to be every bit as much art as fiction writing.

Back in my teaching days I taught a course in expository writing, and resented more than a little the then prevailing attitude among many writing teachers that "creative writing" was restricted to fiction writing and that somehow expository writing wasn't creative. In my opinion, it takes every bit as much, if not more, creativity to write a compelling, believable, moving story within the constraints of a given body of facts that must be adhered to as it does to do so without any external limitations on what one can write about.

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[Aunt_Beth_64]

In my opinion, the ability to put together a string of words that convey meaning, stir emotion, teach, etc. is an art--in both fiction and non-fiction. Whether or not the reader appreciates the result as art is another question. Personally, I love to read, period! I don't think I have a particular preference for fiction or non-fiction--it is the subject matter that draws me in. I greatly admire authors that have such a mastery of the language that their words paint a picture in my mind, make me empathize with the subject or fictional character, and ultimately draw me into the scene. I'll return later and insert a list of some of my favorites in both genres. For now, I just wanted to share my first thoughts in response to reading Ilana's post.

Beth

[IlanaSimons]

Thanks a lot for the response. I think you've hit the heart of the matter: to "draw someone in," an author needs some creative vision. She has to draw something concise and new from scattered bits of data.

I'd look forward to your list.

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Aunt_Beth_64 wrote:
In my opinion, the ability to put together a string of words that convey meaning, stir emotion, teach, etc. is an art--in both fiction and non-fiction. Whether or not the reader appreciates the result as art is another question. Personally, I love to read, period! I don't think I have a particular preference for fiction or non-fiction--it is the subject matter that draws me in. I greatly admire authors that have such a mastery of the language that their words paint a picture in my mind, make me empathize with the subject or fictional character, and ultimately draw me into the scene. I'll return later and insert a list of some of my favorites in both genres. For now, I just wanted to share my first thoughts in response to reading Ilana's post.

Beth

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[KathyS]

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Everyman wrote:
I realize that I went off on a bit of a tangent from what Ilana was actually talking about.

I most definitely do consider non-fiction writing to be every bit as much art as fiction writing.

Back in my teaching days I taught a course in expository writing, and resented more than a little the then prevailing attitude among many writing teachers that "creative writing" was restricted to fiction writing and that somehow expository writing wasn't creative. In my opinion, it takes every bit as much, if not more, creativity to write a compelling, believable, moving story within the constraints of a given body of facts that must be adhered to as it does to do so without any external limitations on what one can write about.

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I've also reread my own comments to you, E-man,(which were written last night) - trying to make some truth out of it this morning. Although, I don't always make sense in the light-of-day, either...even on a good day!

Trying to understand how you must feel when writing this type of work. My own feelings tend to get mixed up with yours, within this topic. It's hard to draw these lines. I've tried to look at the word 'creative', and not the word 'art', because it seems so much harder to define art. It's so general. The problem with me is, I want to attach feelings to these processes of creativity, and not look at it as a building process.

I was thinking of the architect, the designer of buildings. The one who conceptualizes the idea - and what are all of the processes that go into the finished building? We look at the finished building, and stand back and say, that's a beautiful work of art. Who gets the credit for the piece of art? The architect, not the detailers, or the steel workers, or the mills who put all of those nuts and bolts out there to use.

When I look at a work of non-fiction, I don't see the architect; what I see it as, is a story that was given to me by a builder, I see the nuts and bolts - call it history, technical jargon, or whatever, not the designer of that total finished piece of work.

There seems to be more people involved in this process of writing non-fiction, than there is in a single person; one who sequesters herself in a room, putting single energy into a strand of words, and hopefully plotting us through logically, and emotionally, and ending in a finished meaningful thought. Then calling it fiction.

Just more thoughts.
K.

Message Edited by KathyS on 11-03-2007 11:21 AM

[Choisya]

Perhaps Art, like Beauty, is 'in the eye of the beholder'?

Our views about art and literature also change, so what was considered beautiful or artistic yesterday is no longer considered so today. Haute couture is perhaps a good example of this - a great deal of historical research and art goes into designing high fashion items and yet once they are off the drawing board the clothes are soon discarded and considered 'old fashioned' until they come around again as a retro-fashion. The Greek and Roman ideal of the perfect body, particularly the female form, has changed over the centuries too. Venus de Milo, with her curves and full bust, is no longer the ideal form for the slimmer beauties and their admirers today. Literature too goes in and out of fashion. The Victorians were very fond of reading and writing poetry but that is an art form which is very neglected today. The Gothic novel was very popular then too but is less so today. Music changes drastically too - J S Bach's music was originally very popular for dancing to but now we listen to it with reference in a concert hall. All art forms seem to be moveable feasts and therefore impossible to judge with any degree of rationality.

Certainly Duchamp's urinal was very beautiful indeed if you compared it with the common, outdoor middens of the day, whether or not he was making a worthwhile statement about 'what is art'. In Europe bidets are very common in bathrooms and my eyes always light up with pleasure when I see one - am I admiring its art form or its function or both?

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Jessica wrote:
After reading Everyman's post, I'm ready to say that everything is Art. I'm one of those who believe that Duchamp's Bicycle Wheel and Fountain are indeed Art.

These days (I say that with all Postmodern trappings in mind) questions of high or low culture are rarely answered, they're ignored in a very cool way. Low culture adopts high culture ... the opposite happens too. Juxtaposition -- of things or of ideas -- feels like the norm today (ex: a sit-com posing as a reality show).

Cogito, Ergo, Sum. Maybe Duchamp's was chanelling this when he looked at a urinal and saw Art. Everything has meaning, is a signifier, etc.

Speaking of Postmodernism, here's an interesting article about the end of it.

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[Choisya]

Most of my reading life I have had a non-fiction book on the go at the same time as a piece of fiction and the only difference that I can usually see between the two is that fiction generally has the better well turned phrase or poetic description, so is an 'easier' read. However, where does non-fiction end and fiction begin? Early Victorians believed creationism to be non-fictional truth until Darwin came along and replaced those ideas with 'darwinism'. Now we are seeing creationism make a come-back and our grandchildren may believe again in that. In my schooldays I was taught that Richard the Lionheart bravely fought at the Crusades and that his brother John was a wicked king. Now children are taught that Richard I was far from brave and that his brother was the better king. In my now long lifetime I have seen so many stories and scientific theories overturned that I no longer care to distinguish between non-fiction 'fact' and fiction. So for me both are art forms to be equally enjoyed and if I happen to choose a non-fiction author who writes poetically or a novelist whose facts are accurate, I am a 'happy bunny'!

[Fiction4Sale]

Whether fiction or non-fiction I find myself most intrigued by aesthetically expert language use. Generally you don't see a lot expository writing in fiction, more narrative techniques...but no law denies it. And for non fiction narrative technique can be quite effective in capturing the story of "real" events...because they occurred in an unfolding way. So for me given these structural tools, I look to the brilliance of the language in capturing the so-called "truth" of the text. John Updike is an excellent, intelligent writer in fiction and non-fiction, yet in whatever he reality he writes, to me at least, it's the beauty of his wordsmithing that delights. Another favorite writer of mine, from an earlier critical era, was Edmund Wilson, e.g., Axel's Castle, his study of modernism, beautifully rendered.

[Everyman]

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Fiction4Sale wrote:
... Generally you don't see a lot expository writing in fiction, ...

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More so in some of the older narratives. Tom Jones, for example, has some fun expository writing in the first chapters of each book. Trollope sometimes injects exposition into his books: his Castle Richmond has a number of mini-essays on the Irish famine and other topical issues.

[Fiction4Sale]

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Everyman wrote:

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Fiction4Sale wrote:
... Generally you don't see a lot expository writing in fiction, ...

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More so in some of the older narratives. Tom Jones, for example, has some fun expository writing in the first chapters of each book. Trollope sometimes injects exposition into his books: his Castle Richmond has a number of mini-essays on the Irish famine and other topical issues.

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Yes, as Everyman notes above, these are often "antique" in the history of the novel, but in many cases quite effective as pedantic glossings as well as laced with humor, as in Sterne's Tristram Shandy (which is an early foreshadowing of the postmodern experimental novel, self-conscious of its inventive techniques). More questionable to some are the cetacean essays interlarded in Moby Dick by a later disgruntled and rejected Melville (in his own time). And also, let us not forget the groaning complaints from the heavy sloggers who push on through Tolstoy's philosohy of history in the later meanderings of War & Peace. Of late but casting back to the 18th century are John Barth's ironical "chaw in cheek", The Sot-Weed Factor, with its asides about the development of tobacco agriculture in colonial Maryland.

[Choisya]

Novelists who 'lace' their writing with long descriptive passages about the countryside or the psychology of their characters - Trollope, Dickens, Eliot - can be said to be expository. There is a great deal of blurring between the two if they are well written. A modern English historian and biographer, Professor Peter Hennessy, is well known for 'lacing' the dry facts of his work with juicy anecdotes, which give his books the feel of a novel. If non-fiction has humour and a light touch it can be indistinguishable in style from fiction. Similarly, some dry-as-dust novelists can make us feel that we are reading a treatise.

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Fiction4Sale wrote:

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Everyman wrote:

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Fiction4Sale wrote:
... Generally you don't see a lot expository writing in fiction, ...

---

More so in some of the older narratives. Tom Jones, for example, has some fun expository writing in the first chapters of each book. Trollope sometimes injects exposition into his books: his Castle Richmond has a number of mini-essays on the Irish famine and other topical issues.

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Yes...these are often "antique" in the history of the novel, but in many cases quite effective as pedantic glossings as well as laced with humor, as in Sterne's Tristram Shandy (which is an early foreshadowing of the postmodern experimental novel, self-conscious of its inventive techniques). More questionable to some are the cetacean essays interlarded in Moby Dick by a later disgruntled and rejected Melville (in his own time). And also, let us not forget the groaning complaints from the heavy sloggers who push on through Tolstoy's philosohy of history in the later meanderings of War & Peace. Of late but casting back to the 18th century are John Barth's ironical "chaw in cheek", The Sot-Weed Factor, with its asides about the development of tobacco agriculture in colonial Maryland.

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