A History of World Agriculture - From the Neolithic to the Current Crisis

Paperback  512 pp  ISBN 9781844073993      £30.00

• The most comprehensive and powerful history of world agriculture ever written - a seminal work against which all others will be judged
• Fundamental reading for an understanding of our current poverty crisis

A History of World Agriculture provides a grand narrative of ten thousand years of human ingenuity and a penetrating analysis of the rise of agriculture and its handmaid - civilization itself. Coverage is panoramic and breathtaking. From the Near East and Egypt to China, the Americas and medieval and modern Europe, the book traces the rise of agriculture and examines the tapestry of the social and economic structures it nurtured. Most critically, the authors, looking through the lens of the current global poverty crisis, turn the spotlight of history on the present and future to show how this extraordinary wealth of knowledge, tradition and natural variety - developed over 500 generations - is now endangered by today's mechanized and globalized corporate agriculture.

Contents

• Introduction
• Evolution, Agriculture, History
• Neolithic Agricultural Revolution
• Systems of Slash and Burn Agriculture in Forest Environments
• Evolution of Hydraulic Agrarian Systems in the Nile Valley
• Inca Agrarian System
• Agricultural Revolution in Antiquity
• Agricultural Revolution in the Middle Ages in Northwest Europe
• First Agricultural Revolution of Modern Times
• Mechanization of Animal-Drawn Cultivation and the Transport Revolution: The First World Crisis of Agricultural Overproduction
• Second Agricultural Revolution of Modern Times
• Agrarian Crisis and General Crisis

Bibliography
Index