Yes, that’s a good analysis of the book. He’s very much coming at this from the point of view of standard cash-crop agriculture and how it can be made more sustainable, rather than from a more “peasant” outlook of self-provisioning.
I’m going to be reading Rivers of Change: Essays on Early Agriculture in Eastern North America once I get it from the library. I’m not sure if it will be interesting or not, but I hoping that it might throw light on the origins, strengths, and weaknesses of annual agriculture by visiting an often overlooked center of early agricultural development. I get the feeling that it will be quite scholarly.