CONTENTS
Prologue ix
1: A Bird's-Eye View l
Civilization's Engine 7
The Irish Pivot 10
The Length of the Lens 13
2: Planetary Beginnings 17
Real Estate in the Cosmos 19
What Goes Around Comes Around 23
Time to Fill the Pantry 28
3: Enter Human Ingenuity 35
From Genes to Ingenuity 39
Tools, Fire, and Words 47
Forager to Farmer 52
4: Conundrums of Settled Life 59
The Great Irony 60
Bottleneck from Below 65
Life from Rivers 70
Another Conundrum 72
Ancient China Sidesteps the Bottlenecks 75
Europe Ratchets Up 78
5: Ratchets from Afar 85
Boobies and Cormorants 88
Sun-Powered Cargo 92
Traveling Water 98
6: Smash Open the Bottlenecks 105
Food from Air 108
Buffalo Bones and Buried Coral us Hatchets Downstream 118
Another Spigot Opens 122
7: Monocultures March Across 127
the Midwest Hybrids Invade the Corn Belt 133
Short Beats Tall 136
In Search of the Soybean 138
Power from the Ancient Sun 140
More Meat, Less Starch 142
8: Competition for the Bounty 145
Scarecrows to Strychnine 150
A Better Scarecrow 153
Cascading Consequences 157
Perpetual Pursuit 165
9: The Revolution Goes Global 171
From Mexico to India 175
Miracles with Rice 176
The Dark Side of the Revolution 179
Back to the Wild 183
The Next Genetic Twist 185
10: Farmer to Urbanite 189
Fattier and Sweeter 190
The Planetary Machinery Lashes Back 195
The Next Pivots 199
Into the Cacophony 203
Acknowledgments 207
Notes 209
References 231
Index 261