Customer Reviews

Jethro Tull: His Influence on Mechanized Agriculture (Great Innovators)

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A lot of information here about Jethro Tull I was completely unaware of. Still, the less obscure stuff ought to have been covered too; I mean, a Jethro Tull book that doesn't even once mention "Agualung"? Come ON!

I must admit, like the reader from Bloomington, I too was shocked at the virtuosity of Jethro Tull's output. It is one thing to be an original classic rock icon and contribute so much in that genre, but to help be responsible for a revolution in agriculture as well?

Who knew Ian Anderson was such a renaissance man?

While most books about famous people are either laudatory or condemnatory, this one is completely undecided. I couldn't determine if the author himself felt this way, or was trying for balance. Tull is known for his seed-drill and horse-hoe, which are forerunners of today's havesters, plows, and other farming machinery. This book gives a strange biography, descriptions of seed drills and other implements prior to Tull's work, a brief account of Tull's book and its immediate results, and finally a description of some modern farming equipment. The whole is written in a verbose apologetic manner, as if the author is fearful that either the pro-Tull or anti-Tull contingent will attack him if he says something too plainly or too boldly.

There is useful information here, but it was a chore to find it.