Against the Grain: How Agriculture Has Hijacked Civilization

By: Richard Manning

Sign Up Now! Already a Member? Log In
You must be logged into Bookshare to access this title. Learn about membership options, or view our freely available titles.

Synopsis: In this bold book, Richard Manning narrates a fascinating revisionist history of agriculture, from the domestication of plants and animals ten thousand years ago to today's corporate megafarms. Instead of a bucolic Ur-myth, Manning portrays an enterprise that was from its inception expansionist, and that did not so much accompany colonialism as drive it. Drawing on the work of anthropologists, biologists, archaeologists, and historians, as well as on his own extensive research, he traces a commodification of grain that has reached its apex in contemporary agribusiness and that has helped to build some of the most familiar -- and dysfunctional -- features of our political and economic landscape.