Excerpt
You've heard of getting “a fresh set of eyes” to look at something. Soliciting the perspective of someone new can provide opportunities for learning, innovation, and reinvigoration. Several new books offer a useful fresh perspective for those involved in soil conservation and land management to look at their work in a new way.
Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations (University of California Press) by David R. Montgomery, a professor of earth science at the University of Washington, charts the course of soil formation, use, and loss through time. Montgomery makes fascinating bridges between geology, archeology, and history in studying the relationships between soils and civilizations.
Patterns of agriculture, civilization, and soil are identified from ancient Mesopotamia to modern day United States. The book traces the connection between the rise and fall of dozens of human civilizations at different times around the world, the quality of their soil, and how they treated the soil.
US agricultural history is highlighted alongside international examples. Montgomery describes the invention in 1838 of the “steel plow capable of turning up the prairie's thick turf. When he began selling his unstoppable plow, [John] Deere set the stage for a humanitarian …
Footnotes
- Copyright 2007 by the Soil and Water Conservation Society
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