Examines the transformation of architecture and landscape involved in the making of 'sporting plantations' in coastal South Carolina by wealthy sporting enthusiasts. Vivian explores the meaning of plantations in American culture, how new sporting estates affected historical memory of slavery, and the consequences for contemporary views of the South Carolina coast and its past.

In the era between the world wars, wealthy sportsmen and sportswomen created more than seventy large estates in the coastal region of South Carolina. By retaining select features from earlier periods and adding new buildings and landscapes, wealthy sporting enthusiasts created a new type of plantation. In the process, they changed the meaning of the word 'plantation', with profound implications for historical memory of slavery and contemporary views of the South. A New Plantation World is the first critical investigation of these 'sporting plantations'. By examining the process that remade former sites of slave labor into places of leisure, Daniel J. Vivian explores the changing symbolism of plantations in Jim Crow-era America.