Adapting to the Land examines the extent to which Colorado agriculturists adapted to or stretched beyond the limits of land and water. Historian John F. Freeman and horticultural scientist Mark E. Uchanski document the state’s agricultural history and provide context for the shift away from traditional forms of agriculture to the use of synthetic fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides—and, most recently, to more values-driven practices to support the burgeoning popularity of natural and organic foods. This shift has resulted in the establishment of the global organic food processing and distribution industry, which has roots in Colorado.
 
Ancestral Puebloans farmed and grazed within the limits of nature. Early settlers adjusted their cultivation methods through trial and error, while later agriculturists relied on research and technical advice from the Colorado Agricultural College. As part of wartime mobilization, the federal government prompted farmers to efficiently increase yields. To meet the demand for food and fiber scientific and technical innovations led to the development of new plant cultivars and livestock breeds, advances in mechanization, and widespread use of synthetic amendments. Increasing concern over soil fertility and the loss of irrigation water to urbanization contributed to more changes. Despite, or perhaps because of, what we see today along the Front Range, Colorado may still have a chance to slow or even reverse its seemingly unrestrained growth, creating a more vibrant, earth-friendly society in which agriculture plays an increasingly significant part. Scientific discoveries and innovations in regenerative cultivation are clearing the path to a more sustainable future.
 
Adapting to the Land adds an ecological and horticultural perspective to historical interpretations of recurring agricultural issues in the state and tracks the concept of stewardship, suggesting that spiritual beliefs continue to contribute to debates over acceptable agricultural practices and the effects of urbanization upon the land. This book will be a key resource for students, scholars, and general readers interested in agricultural and Colorado history, sustainability, and rural sociology.
 

Lenin described The Agrarian Question as the first systematic Marxist study of capitalism and agriculture and the most important event in economic literature since the third volume of Capital. This great work is regarded as Kautsky's main achievement and is a classic work of analysis. 

Kautsky's pariah status in the eyes of revolutionary Marxists resulted in many years of neglect, but his role and work are now commanding great attention. The analysis of the transformation of peasant economies by capital in The Agrarian Question is now seen as particularly relevant to contemporary Third World peasant economies. 

This remarkable translation, which brings out the humanity - and the humour - in Kautksy's writing, is more than a work of economic analysis: in a manner ahead of his time, Kautsky integrates questions of political strategy, ecology, sexuality and the family. 

The illuminating reassessment of The Agrarian Question in the introduction by Professor Teodor Shanin and Hamza Alavi examines in detail the political context, Kautsky's own life, the development of Kautsky's ideas within the work, and its contribution to our understanding of the world today. This timely re-evaluation of Kautsky's significance is long overdue.

Lenin described The Agrarian Question as the first systematic Marxist study of capitalism and agriculture and the most important event in economic literature since the third volume of Capital. This great work is regarded as Kautsky's main achievement and is a classic work of analysis. 

Kautsky's pariah status in the eyes of revolutionary Marxists resulted in many years of neglect, but his role and work are now commanding great attention. The analysis of the transformation of peasant economies by capital in The Agrarian Question is now seen as particularly relevant to contemporary Third World peasant economies. 

This remarkable translation, which brings out the humanity - and the humour - in Kautksy's writing, is more than a work of economic analysis: in a manner ahead of his time, Kautsky integrates questions of political strategy, ecology, sexuality and the family. 

The illuminating reassessment of The Agrarian Question in the introduction by Professor Teodor Shanin and Hamza Alavi examines in detail the political context, Kautsky's own life, the development of Kautsky's ideas within the work, and its contribution to our understanding of the world today. This timely re-evaluation of Kautsky's significance is long overdue.

Critically analyzes and revitalizes agrarian philosophy by tracing its evolution.

Today, most historians, philosophers, political theorists, and scholars of rural America take a dim view of the agrarian ideal that farmers and farming occupy a special moral and political status in society. Agrarian rhetoric is generally seen as special pleading on the part of farmers seeking protection from labor reform and environmental regulation while continuing to receive direct payments and subsidies from the public till.

Agrarianism should not be viewed as a set of immutable claims about farming and political order, but as a tradition of moral and political philosophy that has evolved and deepened over the centuries. Agrarian naturalism--the belief that culture and conduct are conditioned by nature because they are of a piece with nature--becomes pragmatic naturalism, giving way to a new set of puzzles about how we are to understand the rural landscape and our responsibilities for its use. The agrarian idea that personality and sociability are integrated with the material transformation of the landscape can serve as the basis for a new, pragmatically grounded ethic of natural resources and rural development.

The essays in this volume critically analyze and revitalize agrarian philosophy by tracing its evolution in the classical American philosophy of key figures such as Franklin, Jefferson, Emerson, Thoreau, Dewey, and Royce. Three chapters address the belief that farming peoples develop moral virtue and a taste for democracy as it evolved in the American context, and four examine how a reconstitution of agrarian themes might invigorate our nation's thinking on environment, food, and rural development policy.

The Agrarian Roots of Pragmatism will be of broad interest to scholars of American philosophy, rural history, history of ideas, geography, and agricultural or natural resource policy.

Author Denise C. Hodges examines the osteological remains from 14 archaeological sites in the Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico, in an attempt to address the relationship between the intensification of agriculture and the health status of the prehistoric population. Volume 9 of the subseries Prehistory and Human Ecology of the Valley of Oaxaca.

The noted economist Yair Mundlak presents here a theory of the growth of the agricultural sector within the context of a growing economy. He explores the various aspects of the dynamics of agriculture and their relationship to the dynamics of the economy at large, offering a unique blend of theory, methodology, and empirical analysis.

The rate of agricultural growth has varied across countries and over time, even though the main innovations in agricultural technology have been made available to all countries. Consequently, the difference in performance is due to the use made of the available technology. Mundlak treats the implementation of technology as an economic decision similar to decisions about resource supply and allocation. The development of agriculture, like that of other sectors, is determined to a large degree by the economic environment, especially public policies. This framework permits the author to evaluate the effects of policies on growth by examining their effects on sectoral incentives. Mundlak shows that neutral macroeconomic policies may have a stronger effect on sectoral growth than sector-specific policies.

The book contains problem sets, and will be a reference and text for graduate-level courses.

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, driven by interest-group politics, have spent hundreds of billions of dollars to little purpose. Nonetheless, Gardner concludes that by reconciling competing economic interests while fostering productivity growth and economic integration of the farm and nonfarm economies, the overall twentieth-century role of government in American agriculture is fairly viewed as a triumph of democracy.

New essays from foodways archaeology related to cuisine in social, cultural, and environmental contexts.

This collection of original essays is the first to cover recent trends in foodways archaeology in the Midwest using the concept of cuisine: the selection of food ingredients and methods of food preparation, cooking, and serving/consumption in relation to their social, cultural, and environmental contexts. This work span the Early Archaic (9000 BC) to Late Precontact (up to around AD 1500) in ecological zones of present-day Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, and Manitoba. Chapters trace development from hunter-gathering to horticultural practices to the more robust farming/fishing/hunting model centered on maize, squash, and other domesticates.

As Susan M. Kooiman, Jodie A. O’Gorman, and Autumn M. Painter note, identification of past cooking habits and evolving methods for foodstuffs identification can help archaeologists to reconstruct foodways and connect food behaviors with identity and associated fundamental societal beliefs. Contributors to this collection use cutting-edge methods and perspectives and consider a range of questions and outcomes that demonstrate the versatility and strength of culinary studies. To move the field forward, contributors also note areas for further analysis and improvement.

This volume targets archaeologists and students, archaeobotanists and zooarchaeologists, and those curious about Indigenous food culture. Engaging content includes chapters on the construction of earth ovens, the use-alteration of pottery and residue, a discussion of cuisine combining plant and animal data with ceramic trends, and the various contexts of plates to understand cooking methods and the social role of cuisine. Others examine faunal remains, the plant remains of feasting, the introduction of maize, the use of limestone nixtamalization, and archaeobotanical assemblages that reveal shifts in cuisine. A conclusion addresses the question, Why cuisine?

 

CONTRIBUTORS

Rebecca K. Albert / Alleen Betzenhauser / Jennifer R. Haas / Mary M. King / Susan M. Kooiman / Mary E. Malainey / Terrance J. Martin / Fernanda Neubauer / Kelsey Nordine / Jodie A. O’Gorman / Autumn M. Painter / Jeffrey M. Painter / Kimberly Schaefer / Mary Simon

Never before or since have animals played as significant a role in German history as they did during the Third Reich. Potato beetles and silkworms were used as weapons of war, pigs were used in propaganda, and dog breeding served the Nazis as a model for their racial theories. Paradoxically, some animals were put under special protection while some humans were simultaneously declared unworthy of living. Ultimately, the ways in which Nazis conceptualized and used animals—both literally and symbolically—reveals much about their racist and bigoted attitudes toward other humans.
 
Drawing from diaries, journals, school textbooks, and printed propaganda, J.W. Mohnhaupt tells these animals’ stories vividly and with an eye for everyday detail, focusing each chapter on a different facet of Nazism by way of a specific animal species: red deer, horses, cats, and more. Animals under the Swastika illustrates the complicated, thought-provoking relationship between Nazis and animals.