A History of World Agriculture: From the Neolithic Age to the Current Crisis

by Marcel Mazoyer, Laurence Roudart

Overview

Only once we understand the long history of human efforts to draw sustenance from the land can we grasp the nature of the crisis that faces humankind today, as hundreds of millions of people are faced with famine or flight from the land. From Neolithic times through the earliest civilizations of the ancient Near East, in savannahs, river valleys and the terraces created by the Incas in the Andean mountains, an increasing range of agricultural techniques have developed in response to very different conditions. These developments are recounted in this book, with detailed attention to the ways in which plants, animals, soil, climate, and society have interacted.
Mazoyer and Roudart’s A History of World Agriculture is a path-breaking and panoramic work, beginning with the emergence of agriculture after thousands of years in which human societies had depended on hunting and gathering, showing how agricultural techniques developed in the different regions of the world, and how this extraordinary wealth of knowledge, tradition and natural variety is endangered today by global capitialism, as it forces the unequal agrarian heritages of the world to conform to the norms of profit.
During the twentieth century, mechanization, motorization and specialization have brought to a halt the pattern of cultural and environmental responses that characterized the global history of agriculture until then. Today a small number of corporations have the capacity to impose the farming methods on the planet that they find most profitable. Mazoyer and Roudart propose an alternative global strategy that can safegaurd the economies of the poor countries, reinvigorate the global economy, and create a livable future for mankind.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781583671214
Publisher:	Monthly Review Press
Publication date:	06/01/2006
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	496
Sales rank:	302,281
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.50(d)

About the Author

Marcel Mazoyer is professor of comparative agriculture and agricultural development at the National Institute of Agronomy (INA) in Paris, where he succeeded Rene Dumont. He is the author of several books on the history of agriculture and has worked on agricultural policy in more than twenty countries.

Laurence Roudart is an agricultural engineer and researcher at the National Institute of Agronomy (INA) in Paris, and has consulted extensively on agriculture in Africa and Asia.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments     8
Preface     9
Introduction     19
Humanity's Agrarian Heritage     20
A Theory of Agrarian Systems     21
Agrarian Crisis and General Crisis     23
The Plan of This Book     25
Evolution, Agriculture, History     27
Life, Evolution, and Agriculture     29
Hominization and Agriculture     33
The Concept of Agrarian Systems     46
Biomass, Soil, and Fertility     52
Agriculture and History     64
The Neolithic Agricultural Revolution     71
Centers of Origin of Neolithic Agriculture     74
Areas of Extension     86
Domestication and Domesticability     92
Conclusion     98
Systems of Slash-and-Burn Agriculture in Forest Environments: Deforestation and the Formation of Post-Forest Agrarian Systems     101
Formation of Systems of Slash-and-Burn Agriculture     103
The Organization and Functioning of Slash-and-Burn Agricultural Systems     109
The Dynamics of Slash-and-Burn Agricultural Systems     119
Emergence and Differentiation of Post-Forest Agrarian Systems     126
Problems of Development in Today's Forest Agrarian Systems     137
The Evolution of Hydraulic Agrarian Systems in the Nile Valley     143
The Original Ecosystem and the First Occupants of the Valley     148
Basin and Winter Cultivation Systems     151
Systems of Irrigated Cultivation     167
Conclusion     185
The Inca Agrarian System: A Mountain Agrarian System Composed of Complementary Subsystems at Different Elevations     189
Historical Summary     191
Agricultural Production and Trade in the Inca Empire     194
Social Organization and the Role of the State     203
The Destruction of Inca Society     210
Installation of a Satellite Colonial Economy     211
Conclusion     216
Agrarian Systems Based on Fallowing and Animal-Drawn Cultivation with the Ard in the Temperate Regions: The Agricultural Revolution in Antiquity     217
The Origins of the System Based on Fallowing in the Temperate Regions     219
Structure and Functioning of Systems based on Fallowing and Animal-Drawn Cultivation Using the Ard     229
The Agrarian and Food Questions in Antiquity     245
Agrarian Systems Based on Fallowing and Animal-Drawn Cultivation with the Plow in the Cold Temperate Regions: The Agricultural Revolution of the Middle Ages in Northwestern Europe     259
The Genesis of Cultivation Using the Animal-Drawn Plow     361
Structure and Functioning of Systems based on Fallowing and Animal-Drawn Cultivation Using a Plow     269
The Agricultural Revolution of the Middle Ages     286
Causes and Consequences of the Agricultural Revolution: Demographic, Economic, Urban, and Cultural Growth     293
The Crisis of Systems based on Fallowing and Animal-Drawn Cultivation Using the Plow and Its Later Reappearance     302
Conclusion     309
Agrarian Systems without Fallowing in the Temperate Regions: The First Agricultural Revolution of Modern Times     313
The Birth of the New Agriculture     316
Organization and Functioning of Systems that Exclude Fallowing     319
The Consequences of the First Agricultural Revolution     326
The Conditions of Development of the First Agricultural Revolution     332
Conclusion     351
The Mechanization of Animal-Drawn Cultivation and the Transportation Revolution: The First World Crisis of Agricultural Overproduction     355
The Mechanization of Animal-Drawn Cultivation and Harvest Processing     357
The Steam Engine and the Transportation Revolution     366
Competition, Overproduction, and Crisis     369
Conclusion     372
The Second Agricultural Revolution of Modern Times: Motorization, Mechanization, Synthetic Fertilizers, Seed Selection, and Specialization     375
Main Stages in the Development of the Second Agricultural Revolution     379
Structure and Functioning of Agrarian Systems Originating in the Second Agricultural Revolution     395
Difficulties, Disadvantages, and Failures of the Second Agricultural Revolution and Its Agricultural Policies     422
Conclusion     439
Agrarian Crisis and General Crisis     441
Origins and Expansion of the Agrarian Crisis in the Developing Countries     444
From the Agrarian Crisis to the Crisis of the Developing Countries     468
From the Crisis of the Developing Countries to the World Crisis     476
For a World Anti-Crisis Strategy Founded on Safeguarding and Developing the Poor Peasant Economy     483
Conclusion     492
Conclusion     495
Notes     498
Metric Units of Measurement Converted Into Imperial Units     506
Index     507

Editorial Reviews

A magnificent book, by far the best ever produced on the subject.' Samir Amin 'Replete with rich reflections on agriculture . . . It is a testament to the enormous erudition of its authors and a defense of peasant economies victimized by neoliberal policies.' Le Matin (France) 'This book is a major contribution to the analysis of agricultural history as well as to reflection on the long term economic, social and environmental development of society.' Michel Griffon, Hum Ecol (2008)

From the Publisher