EXCERPT: This is a peach of a book. While William Thomas Okie entitled his study The Georgia Peach, the peach is but the hard pit of the book. Tales of people, places, markets, the United States Department of Agriculture, overproduction, cooperatives, racism, Yankees, and a host of other interrelated topics flesh out the story. The book is, in short, a familiar southern narrative that revolves around horticulture, not around staple crop production. The focus sets the study apart well enough, but Okie’s ability to weave disparate threads into a coherent and engaging whole makes it a model for other historians to follow and explains why the book has garnered awards on many fronts.