Customer Reviews

Advance of the Fungi

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ntertaining story, based on original scientific papers and news paper articles; the author tells a witty, thoughtful and interesting story--full of details about the character of the problems and those who tried to solve them. Beginning in 1845 with the European potatoe blight, the author chronicles the battle against potato blight, larch canker, coffee-leaf rust, anthrax, hoof and mouth disease, lead in the USA, and many others. He discusses the hypotheses and experiments used to eventually understand and control fungal diseases. The science is framed in its historical setting and includes line drawings of plants and organisms.

Plant pathology, and the development of modern methods of combating plant diseases, is probably not most peoples' first choice as far as what to read on a rainy night when you have nothing better to do. However, if you ever do get the urge, you could do a lot worse than Large's readable, and even somewhat absorbing, book on the subject. Starting with the first major outbreak of Potato Blight in Ireland in 1845, which resulted in the Irish Potato Famine, Large takes us through 1939 by looking at the ways in which science found ways to combat various diseases of crops throughout the world. Sounds dull, doesn't it? Well, it's not. Large is very good at explaining the things he's talking about, and he never gets above the reader's level of comprehension, while at the same time never talking down to the reader. A fascinating book, worth picking up if you happen across it in a used bookstore.