The Conquest of Bread: 150 Years of Agribusiness in California [Hardcover]

Richard A. Walker (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 14, 2004

A sweeping analysis of California's agrarian history from 1850 to the present

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Walker, a Geography professor at UC Berkley and co-author of The Capitalist Imperative, has written an all-encompassing study of one of California’s main cash cows outside the silver screen and dot-coms—food. Methodical and meticulous, he examines key aspects of the state’s agriculture industry, delving deep into its history and patiently setting forth explanations of its inner workings. With its 200-plus crops and substantial canned goods business, California is king among the states in production and revenue for both farming and food processing. After introducing this landscape of abundance, Walker discusses the essential components of California’s agribusiness: laborers, growers and landowners; the land and its products; machines and biotechnology; and marketing and capital. He explores each topic systematically, providing a chronological view of the industry’s development, complete with details about the state’s rich historical background. More than a few charts and graphs accompany the text, but Walker’s writing is rarely technical or overly academic. Though much has been written about farming in California, Walker’s command of that literature and the relevant statistics allows him to present a comprehensive overview of California’s thriving agribusiness.
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About the Author

Richard A. Walker is Professor and past Chair of Geography at the University of California, Berkeley. He is author, with Michael Storper, of The Capitalist Imperative and, with Andrew Sayer, of The New Social Economy. He lives in Berkeley, California.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 382 pages
• Publisher: New Press, The (October 14, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1565848772
• ISBN-13: 978-1565848771
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #358,617 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars stunningly comprehensive, June 13, 2005

By 

Jason Rhodes (Seoul, Korea) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Conquest of Bread: 150 Years of Agribusiness in California (Hardcover)

The Conquest of Bread will make compelling reading for anyone interested in California and its history, the history of agriculture, or simply how society works. For Walker, the answers are not to be found in the intersects of supply and demand curves and neo-liberal theory, supposedly applicable to every time and place, but rather in how particular classes, groups, and social forces have come together over the last 150 years to produce California agribusiness, a social phenomenon as staggering in its success and productivity as it is in its levels of human exploitation and environmental degradation.

7 of 54 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars a strong argument against academic tenure, January 20, 2005

By 

Philip E. Bowles (San Francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Conquest of Bread: 150 Years of Agribusiness in California (Hardcover)

Here is an educated man, isolated from peer review, re-warming ancient, pointless Populist ideas about a subject he knows only by association. Without the bulwark of tenure, he could have been challenged to have written something less formulaic and outdated.
What is more the pity is that he cares about his subject; he is just not used to having to defend his ideas, so he just comes off as a boring, monomoniacal old professor. One without an editor.