Against the Grain : : how Agriculture Hijacked Civilization

AADL has no copies of this item

COMMUNITY REVIEWS

Somewhat Skewed Perspective on Agriculture submitted by sdunav on July 10, 2011, 12:15pm This is a rather weird history of agriculture - I learned some interesting things, but Manning's use of the anthropological literature is really bad. He cherry picks a few items to support his ideas (that agriculture has made humanity worse and worse off through the years, mainly), and ignores a lot of evidence to the contrary, like relatively egalitarian tribal societies that practiced intensive farming.

If you want to read a lot about the evils of ADM (Archer Daniels Midland) and industrial agriculture, though, this is the book for you.

Manning's not a bad writer, but the book is definitely all over the place when it comes to ideas about food, hunting and gathering, and modern farming. I think a series of more focused articles or essays might have been a better bet for Manning.

Not unbiased but informative and challenging submitted by John Staunton on August 30, 2018, 10:03pm the history creates a sense of the monolith of agriculture