I want to stress that “farming matters,” to use the words of historian Steven Stoll. “It is the central biological and ecological relationship in any settled society,” Stoll argues, “and the most profound way that humans have changed the world over the last ten thousand years.” Agriculture has seen many changes since 1865—mechanization, specialization, intensification, the application of biotechnology, the rise of organic farming—all of which can be discussed under the framework of industrialization. With the likelihood of a real energy crisis increasing each year, industrialized agriculture is even more important to understand. It is, in short, a present concern.
In my second half of the U.S. survey, then, the industrialization of agriculture will be a prominent theme. This theme could take the form of one or two lectures, or it may be woven throughout the course in smaller pieces. As a disclaimer, I will simply quote Jim Cobb, who once defined teaching as “seeing how much oversimplification you get away with without misleading anyone.”
I. The Jeffersonian Ideal
