Creating Abundance

Erscheinungsjahr 2008
ISBN: 978-0-521-67387-7
Verlag: Cambridge University Press

Buch, Englisch, 480 Seiten, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 229 mm, Gewicht: 700 g

This book demonstrates that American agricultural development was far more dynamic than generally portrayed. In the two centuries before World War II, a stream of biological innovations revolutionized the crop and livestock sectors, increasing both land and labor productivity. Biological innovations were essential for the movement of agriculture onto new lands with more extreme climates, for maintaining production in the face of evolving threats from pests, and for the creation of the modern livestock sector. These innovations established the foundation for the subsequent Green and Genetic Revolutions. The book challenges the misconceptions that, before the advent of hybrid corn, American farmers single-mindedly invested in labor-saving mechanical technologies and that biological technologies were static.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Olmstead, Alan L.

Rhode, Paul W.

Fachgebiete

• Technische Wissenschaften Verfahrenstechnik | Chemieingenieurwesen | Biotechnologie Biotechnologie Medizinische Biotechnologie
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Wissenschafts- und Universitätsgeschichte
• Technische Wissenschaften Technik Allgemein Technikgeschichte
• Interdisziplinäres Wissenschaften Wissenschaften: Allgemeines Geschichte der Human- und Sozialwissenschaften
• Interdisziplinäres Wissenschaften Wissenschaften: Allgemeines Geschichte der Naturwissenschaften, Formalen Wissenschaften & Technik
• Naturwissenschaften Agrarwissenschaften Agrarwissenschaften

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1. Introduction; 2. The red queen and the hard reds: productivity growth in American wheat, 1800–1940; 3. Corn: America's crop; 4. Cotton: variety innovation and the making of king cotton; 5. Weevils, worms, and wilts: the red queen's cotton playground; 6. The other revolution in the cotton economy: cotton's revival in the twentieth century; 7. That 'stinking weed of America': the evolution of tobacco production; 8. California: creating a cornucopia; 9. Livestock in the farm economy; 10. Defining and redesigning America's livestock; 11. Nature's perfect food: inventing the modern dairy industry; 12. Draft power; 13. Conclusion: tying it together.

Über Autor(innen)

Olmstead, Alan L.
Alan L. Olmstead is Director of the Institute of Governmental Affairs, Professor of Economics, and member of the Giannini Foundation of Agricultural Economics at the University of California, Davis. He is one of the six editors-in-chief of Historical Statistics of the United States: Millennial Edition (2006), and his writings appear regularly in the leading economics and history journals.

Rhode, Paul W.
Paul W. Rhode is McClelland Professor of Economics at the University of Arizona and Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He is co-editor (with Gianni Toniolo) of The Global Economy in the 1990s: A Long-Run Perspective (2006). He is a frequent contributor to prominent economics and history journals.