Customer Reviews

The Reign of Law; a tale of the Kentucky hemp fields

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This book is commonly sold on a certain auction site by highlighting the subject matter of hemp (aka marijuana). This book is NOT about turn of the century drug culture.

The protagonist of this story is a young man attending a religious college, questioning the values and morals that he was raised with, and learning about love and life in the process. James Lane Allen, who wrote other novels with Kentucky settings, chose to use the cycle of hemp crops to parallel human growth - neither the first nor last author to use such an analogy. At the time, hemp was an important source of fiber and the plant was grown commercially for that use, and Kentucky was the largest producing state. Hemp was an agricultural product like cotton or corn.

The book aroused some readers' ire due to its controversial topic - the questioning of religious doctrine by a young college student. The story now is somewhat dated; that is in fact part of its charm. We gain a glimpse of the beliefs and mores of Americans at the beginning of the twentieth century, and the changes that would soon contribute to the first World War.

The first chapter does discuss the history of hemp agriculture in the United States and Kentucky, but that is not the thrust of the book in any way.