The colonial plantation elite's persistent emulation of the British landed gentry has long intrigued American historians, who recently have insisted that the pursuit of this apparently outdated ideal was an impediment to the development of a distinctive American culture. In The Complete Colonial Gentleman, Michal J. Rozbicki argues that such a view misreads the legitimizing process and the history of culture.

Rozbicki's interpretation contrasts provocatively with recent studies of colonial America and demonstrates how the essentially conservative aspirations of colonial planter gentility foreshadowed distinctly American and democratice developments.