Feeding the World: An Economic History of Agriculture, 1800-2000
Giovanni Federico - Princeton University Press, 2008
In the last two centuries, agriculture has been an outstanding, if somewhat
neglected, success story. Agriculture has fed an ever-growing population with an
increasing variety of products at falling prices, even as it has released a
growing number of workers to the rest of the economy. This book, a comprehensive
history of world agriculture during this period, explains how these feats were
accomplished.
Feeding the World synthesizes two hundred years of agricultural
development throughout the world, providing all essential data and extensive
references to the literature. It covers, systematically, all the factors that
have affected agricultural performance: environment, accumulation of inputs,
technical progress, institutional change, commercialization, agricultural
policies, and more. The last chapter discusses the contribution of agriculture
to modern economic growth. The book is global in its reach and analysis, and
represents a grand synthesis of an enormous topic.
