Agro Commodities & Agricultural Produts

Boll Weevil Blues: Cotton, Myth, and Power in the American South Between the 1890s and the early 1920s, the boll weevil slowly ate its way across the Cotton South from Texas to the Atlantic Ocean. At the turn of the century, some Texas counties were reporting crop losses of over 70 percent, as were areas of Louisiana, Arkansas, and Mississippi. By the time the boll weevil reached the limits of the cotton belt, it had destroyed much of the region’s chief cash crop—tens of billions of pounds of cotton, worth nearly a trillion dollars. As staggering as these numbers may seem, James C. Giesen demonstrates that it was the very idea of the boll weevil and the struggle over its meanings that most profoundly changed the South—as different groups, from policymakers to blues singers, projected onto this natural disaster the consequences they feared and the outcomes they sought. Giesen asks how the myth of the boll weevil’s lasting impact helped obscure the real problems of the…. Click here to Read More

Feeding Mexico: The Political Uses of Food since 1910 (Latin American Silhouettes) Winner of the 1998 Michael C. Meyer Manuscript Prize! Feeding Mexico: The Political Uses of Food since 1910 traces the Mexican government’s intervention in the regulation, production, and distribution of food from the days of Cardenas to the recent privatization inspired by NAFTA. Professor Ochoa argues that the real goals of the government’s food subsidies were political, driven by presidential desires to court urban labor. Many of the agencies and policies were hastily set in place in response to short-term political or economic crises. Since the goals were not to alleviate poverty, but to provide modest subsidies to urban consumers, the policies did not eliminate destitution or malnutrition in the country. Despite the minimal achievements of these interventionist policies, the State Food Agency provided a symbol of the state’s concern for the workers. The elimination of the Agency in the 1990s…. Click here to Read More

Question by JuliaS: All of the following correctly characterize American participation in World War One EXCEPT…? A. the participation of the American navy in battle was decisive in the Allied Powers’ victory. B. the United States substantially increased the size of its army and national guard. C. the United States introduced a number of new taxes, including one on estates, to pay for war costs. D. American troops fought mainly on the western front. E. American success in the Meuse-Argonne offensive caused the Germans to retreat. 2.Which of the following statements correctly identifies a major effect of the war on the American economy? A. The war created a permanent place in industry for large numbers of women. B. Organized labor made important gains in wages and employment. C. There was little or no inflation. D. American agriculture produced more than enough food so there was no need for government controls. E. During the war, Congress outlawed unionization and…. Click here to Read More

Working the Garden: American Writers and the Industrialization of Agriculture In 1860 farmers accounted for 60 percent of the American workforce; in 1910, 30.5 percent; by 1994, there were too few to warrant a separate census category. The changes wrought by the decline of family farming and the rise of industrial agribusiness typically have been viewed through historical, economic, and political lenses. But as William Conlogue demonstrates, some of the most vital and incisive debates on the subject have occurred in a site that is perhaps less obvious–literature. Conlogue refutes the critical tendency to treat farm-centered texts as pastorals, arguing that such an approach overlooks the diverse ways these works explore human relationships to the land. His readings of works by Willa Cather, Ruth Comfort Mitchell, John Steinbeck, Luis Valdez, Ernest Gaines, Jane Smiley, Wendell Berry, and others reveal that, through agricultural narratives, authors have addressed such…. Click here to Read More

Making Catfish Bait out of Government Boys: The Fight against Cattle Ticks and the Transformation of the Yeoman South (Environmental History and the American South) This first full-length study of the cattle tick eradication program in the United States offers a new perspective on the fate of the yeomanry in the twentieth-century South during a period when state and federal governments were both increasing and centralizing their authority. As Claire Strom relates the power struggles that complicated efforts to wipe out the Boophilus tick, she explains the motivations and concerns of each group involved, including large- and small-scale cattle farmers, scientists, and officials at all levels of government.In the remote rural South–such as the piney woods of south Georgia and north Florida–resistance to mandatory treatment of cattle was unusually strong and sometimes violent. Cattle often ranged free, and their owners raised them mostly for local use rather than faraway markets….. Click here to Read More

American Agriculture in the Twentieth Century: How It Flourished and What It Cost American agriculture in the twentieth century has given the world one of its great success stories, a paradigm of productivity and plenty. Yet the story has its dark side, from the plight of the Okies in the 1930s to the farm crisis of the 1980s to today’s concerns about low crop prices and the impact of biotechnology. Looking at U.S. farming over the past century, Bruce Gardner searches out explanations for both the remarkable progress and the persistent social problems that have marked the history of American agriculture. Gardner documents both the economic difficulties that have confronted farmers and the technological and economic transformations that have lifted them from relative poverty to economic parity with the nonfarm population. He provides a detailed analysis of the causes of these trends, with emphasis on the role of government action. He reviews how commodity support programs,…. Click here to Read More

The Archaeology of North American Farmsteads (The American Experience in Archaeological Perspective) From the early colonial period to the close of World War II, life in North America was predominantly agrarian and rural. Archaeological exploration of farmsteads unveils a surprising quantity of data about rural life, consumption patterns, and migrations across the continent.   Mark Groover offers both case studies and an overview of current trends in farmstead archaeology in this exciting new work. He also proposes a research design and makes numerous suggestions for evaluating (and re-evaluating) the significance of farmsteads as an archaeological resource. His chronological survey of farmstead sites throughout numerous regions of North America provides fascinating insights to students, cultural resource management professionals, or general readers interested in learning more about what material culture remains can teach us about the American past.   Farmstead archaeology is a…. Click here to Read More

Emergence of Agriculture (“Scientific American” Library) In this text, the archaeologist, Bruce Smith, explores the initial emergence and early expansion of agriculture and the transformations in human society that made it possible. He charts the course of the agricultural revolution as it occurred in the Middle East, Europe, China, Africa and the Americas, showing how basic archaeological methods and modern technologies, such as plant analysis, radiocarbon dating and DNA sampling are used to investigate this event. Although in the agricultural mind, the agricultural revolution is often seen as a one-step transition from hunter-gatherer societies to farming ones, Smith shows how truly varied the patterns of animal and plant domestication were in different parts of the world. List Price: $ 19.95 Price: $…. Click here to Read More

North American Trees Completely updated, this new edition continues the grand tradition of this classic reference covering trees of North America excluding Mexico and tropical Florida.This handbook has been designed to meet the needs of the general public as well as those of students and scientists. Concise descriptions of botanical and silvical characters have been included for species of trees. Accurate and up-to-date, the new edition of this highly regarded reference incorporates recent changes in scientific and common names of trees, and offers improved distribution maps and more detailed descriptions of individual species.All of the trees are grouped by family, from pines and redwoods to ashes and elders, with a clearly organized key to identification. Individual entries on hundreds of species offer concise descriptions of habit, leaves, fruit, twig, and bark. Line drawings of leaf, flower, and fruit accompany each entry. A convenient glossary has also been included.Accurate…. Click here to Read More