The World's Greatest Fix: A History of Nitrogen and Agriculture
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.36 (788 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0195165829 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 256 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2017-12-13 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
When they for the first time began planting the same fields year after year, they noticed quickly the need to ensure soil fertility. But how? The method they came up with is still in use to this day.. In the tradition of Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel, this gives the very early history of how human ingenuity overcame the risk of famine through productive agriculture. Starting with a layman's guide to the chemistry of nitrogen fixation, the book goes on to show how humans emerged from nomadic lifestyles and began developing towns and settlements
"Leigh conveys a great deal of information in 220 pages of text, and does so in an easy-to-read, clear and accurate style. This is an altogether fine book."--Nature"This is a detailed, scholarly, well-documented and illustrated work, intended for the layman but suitable for those interested in the history of agriculture, chemistry, and modern industry." --Choice
An important subject AG Primack This is an iconoclastic telling of the story of what we knew about nitrogen and when we knew it. The author tells the story of the development of the undrestanding of plant nutrition in farming, starting as far back as possible and traveling up to the modern industry of making fertilizer and explosives.The information is entertainingly presented, but the authors quirks of presentation sometime overcome the information. Important for anyone who wants to understand the develop
. Leigh is Emeritus Professor of Environmental Science at the University of Sussex