In the last two centuries, agriculture has been an outstanding, if somewhat neglected, success story. Agriculture has fed an ever-growing population with an increasing variety of products at falling ...prices, even as it has released a growing number of workers to the rest of the economy. This book, a comprehensive history of world agriculture during this period, explains how these feats were accomplished.
Feeding the Worldsynthesizes two hundred years of agricultural development throughout the world, providing all essential data and extensive references to the literature. It covers, systematically, all the factors that have affected agricultural performance: environment, accumulation of inputs, technical progress, institutional change, commercialization, agricultural policies, and more. The last chapter discusses the contribution of agriculture to modern economic growth. The book is global in its reach and analysis, and represents a grand synthesis of an enormous topic.
An Economist Best History Book 2017
"History as it should be written."-Barry Cunliffe,
Guardian "Scott hits the nail squarely on
the head by exposing the staggering price our ancestors paid for
...civilization and political order."-Walter Scheidel, Financial
Times Why did humans abandon hunting and gathering
for sedentary communities dependent on livestock and cereal grains,
and governed by precursors of today's states? Most people believe
that plant and animal domestication allowed humans, finally, to
settle down and form agricultural villages, towns, and states,
which made possible civilization, law, public order, and a
presumably secure way of living. But archaeological and historical
evidence challenges this narrative. The first agrarian states, says
James C. Scott, were born of accumulations of domestications: first
fire, then plants, livestock, subjects of the state, captives, and
finally women in the patriarchal family-all of which can be viewed
as a way of gaining control over reproduction. Scott explores why
we avoided sedentism and plow agriculture, the advantages of mobile
subsistence, the unforeseeable disease epidemics arising from
crowding plants, animals, and grain, and why all early states are
based on millets and cereal grains and unfree labor. He also
discusses the "barbarians" who long evaded state control, as a way
of understanding continuing tension between states and nonsubject
peoples.
Peasants under siege Kligman, Gail; Verdery, Katherine
2011, 2011., 20110725, c2011., 2011-07-25
eBook, Book
In 1949, Romania's fledgling communist regime unleashed a radical and brutal campaign to collectivize agriculture in this largely agrarian country, following the Soviet model. Peasants under Siege ...provides the first comprehensive look at the far-reaching social engineering process that ensued. Gail Kligman and Katherine Verdery examine how collectivization assaulted the very foundations of rural life, transforming village communities that were organized around kinship and status hierarchies into segments of large bureaucratic organizations, forged by the language of "class warfare" yet saturated with vindictive personal struggles.
Black, White, and Green Alkon, Alison Hope; Cowen, Deborah; Heynen, Nik ...
11/2012, Volume:
13
eBook
Farmers markets are much more than places to buy produce. According to advocates for sustainable food systems, they are also places to "vote with your fork" for environmental protection, vibrant ...communities, and strong local economies. Farmers markets have become essential to the movement for food-system reform and are a shining example of a growing green economy where consumers can shop their way to social change. Black, White, and Green brings new energy to this topic by exploring dimensions of race and class as they relate to farmers markets and the green economy. With a focus on two Bay Area markets-one in the primarily white neighborhood of North Berkeley, and the other in largely black West Oakland-Alison Hope Alkon investigates the possibilities for social and environmental change embodied by farmers markets and the green economy. Drawing on ethnographic and historical sources, Alkon describes the meanings that farmers market managers, vendors, and consumers attribute to the buying and selling of local organic food, and the ways that those meanings are raced and classed. She mobilizes this research to understand how the green economy fosters visions of social change that are compatible with economic growth while marginalizing those that are not. Black, White, and Green is one of the first books to carefully theorize the green economy, to examine the racial dynamics of food politics, and to approach issues of food access from an environmental-justice perspective. In a practical sense, Alkon offers an empathetic critique of a newly popular strategy for social change, highlighting both its strengths and limitations.
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