The Oxford Handbook of Agricultural History

by Whayne, Jeannie

• ISBN13: 9780190924164
• ISBN10: 0190924160
• eBook ISBN(s): 9780197685440
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2024-03-26
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• More Book Details

Summary

Agricultural history has enjoyed a rebirth in recent years, in part because the agricultural enterprise promotes economic and cultural connections in an era that has become ever more globally focused, but also because of agriculture's potential to lead to conflicts over precious resources. History is replete with stories of armies standing or falling as a result of their supply of agriculturally produced commodities. Civilizations have likewise succumbed because of famine or crop-related pestilence, highlighting the critical nature of agriculture to both regional and global society. The importance and fragility of agricultural systems will come into much greater focus because of climate change in the twenty-first century, something farmers the world over have begun to reckon with. As its implications are manifested in droughts and floods that hamper crop production, urban people will become ever more conscious of their own reliance upon agriculture.

The contemporary critical evaluation of agriculture reflects a transition from a framework that celebrated the positive aspects of the evolution of agriculture to one that also explores its negative implications, such as the emergence of intensive and extractive agriculture that has worked to the detriment of indigenous peoples and disrupted traditional political economies.

The Oxford Handbook of Agricultural History reflects this rebirth and examines the wide-reaching implications of agricultural issues, bringing together the many historiographical traditions within geographic regions across the world that intersect either directly or indirectly in terms of agricultural history. Contributors to this volume include historians from around the world and specialists in European, American, African, Middle East, Russian, and Asian history. Essays touch on the green revolution, the development of the Atlantic slave plantation, the agricultural impact of the American Civil War, the rise of scientific and corporate agriculture, and modern exploitation of agricultural labor. The Oxford Handbook of Agricultural History is an essential volume for those interested in the myriad ways that agricultural systems affect our world.

Author Biography

Jeannie Whayne is Professor of History at the University of Arkansas and a past president of the Agricultural History Society.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Jeannie Whayne

Part I. Timeless Essentials

1. Land
Frank Uekötter

2. Soil Fertility
Laura Drinkwater

3. A Short History of Seed Keeping
Helen Anne Curry

4. A History of Livestock and People
Claire Strom

5. Agricultural Contestation: The Case of Locusts
Martha Few

6. Agricultural Labor
Steve Striffler

7. Peasants and the Peasantry: Persistence, Reform or Extinction?
Jonathan Rigg

8. Women in Agriculture
Pamela Riney-Kehrberg

Part II. Modern Essentials

9. Mechanization of Agriculture
R. Douglas Hurt

10. Agricultural Science
J.L. Anderson

11. Expert and Knowledge Networks
Deborah Fitzgerald

12. Commodity Frontiers as Drivers of Global Capitalism
Ulbe Bosma and Eric Vanhaute

13. Worker Health in Modern Agriculture
Michitake Aso

Part III. Exemplary Commodities

14. Corn: From Versatile Staple to Global “Flex” Crop
Elizabeth Fitting

15. Wheat
Tom Isern

16. Rice
Peter A. Coclanis

17. Soy: The Making of a Global Commodity
Ernst Langthaler

18. Sugar
Suzanne Moon

19. Coffee: The Promise and Perils of a Global Commodity
Stuart McCook

20. Bananas
Evan P. Bennett

21. Potatoes that Changed the World
Christopher Shepherd

22. Cotton
Jonathan Robbins

23. Tobacco
Melissa N. Morris

24. The Silkscape of California: A Reconsideration of “Failure” in Sericulture
Lisa Onaga

Part IV. Key Transitions or Challenges

25. Turning Points in Hydro-Agricultural Development
Christopher L. Pastore

26. The Islamic Agricultural Revolution
Michael J. Decker

27. Wet Rice in East Asia: A Long Revolution
Francesca Bray

28. The Atlantic Plantation
Trevor Burnard

29. Agriculture, the Atlantic Plantation, and the Environment in the U.S. South
Jeannie Whayne

30. The British Agricultural Revolution
Richard Hoyle

31. Frontier Agriculture and the Creation of Global Neo-Europes
Jonathan Daly

32. Contestation over Agricultural Production in Colonial Africa
Cassandra Mark-Thiesen

33. The Global Green Revolution
Mark B. Tauger

34. Famine
Jenny Leigh Smith

35. Forest Transition Theory
Brett Bennett and Gregory Barton