Book Reviews 227 teaching), a fragmented set of theories rather than the cohesiveness of something like ‘The Tourist Gaze’. And perhaps that’s no bad thing. LUKE DESFORGES Institute of Geography and Earth Sciences University of Wales Aberystuyth PII: SO743-0167(98)00033-3 Histoire des agricultures du monde: du nkolithique A la crise contemporaine, Marcel Mazoyer and Laurence Roudart, 546 pp., 1997, Seuil, Paris, 180 French francs, pbk, ISBN 2 02 032397 4 Drawing on their long and varied experience of agricul- tural research in many countries, both developed and less developed, Professor Mazoyer and Laurence Roudart have produced a textbook which is wide-ranging in both space and time. Their objective is to provide an economic history which moves on to an analysis of the international economics of farm production and trade in agricultural commodities at the present time. Their approach is truly inter-disciplinary and draws on work in archaeology, anthropology and geography, as well as history and economics. The book fits securely into the tradition of distinguished work by Professor RenC Dumont whose chair of comparative agriculture and agricultural develop- ment Marcel Mazoyer now occupies at the Institut National Agronomique Paris-Grignon. A brief introduction identifies agricultural development as a vital theme for research and scholarship, stressing that for the first time in history some elements of the world’s agricultural systems now have the ability to produce substantial and problematic agricultural surpluses, while others continue at very low productive levels. The text is organised into eleven chapters, most of which focus on specific periods of agricultural development. The excep- tion is chapter 1 which explores a series of fundamental biological and ecological concepts and traces the earliest phases of human occupation of the Earth’s surface. The notion of the ‘agrarian system’, whereby natural resources are appraised, exploited and managed and cultural landscapes are created, is analysed and illustrated as an essential platform for subsequent chapters. Some clear maps, diagrams and graphs (on ‘original’ vegetation systems, early tools, and population growth) set a very high illustrative standard which is maintained throughout the book. The remaining chapters deal with major agricultural systems in their chronological sequence. In each case, the authors identify the originality of the system and how it came about, placing emphasis on its organisation (both ecologically and socially), its functioning (with regard to land clearance and fertilisation), and its variable sustain- ability. Demographic, social and political consequences are also outlined. Chapter 2 is devoted to the Neolithic ‘agricultural revolution’, with attention to developments not only in the Near East but also in the Americas, China and other parts of the Far East. Subsequent chapters explore cultivation in forest clearances (with interesting early references to the ecological dangers of excessive burning and felling), irrigated agricultural systems in the Nile Valley from the earliest times to the Aswan High Dam, and the farming techniques and cultural landscapes of the Incas. The next four chapters continue to explore the notion of ‘agricultural revolution’ in the context of the Classical World of the Mediterranean, of north-western Europe in medieval times, of Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and of the mechanised world of tractors, steam boats and dynamic international trade. The two final chapters examine -the dramatic changes of recent years, incorporating biological advances, massive changes in the rural environment, escalating productivity, the sharp decline in the agricultural workforces of the developed world, and of course marked contrasts, with far lower levels of productivity remaining across vast sections of the globe. This contrast in productivity and wealth is highlighted in the final pages as an agrarian crisis in its own right which forms part of a vast crisis of development. Not surprisingly, the style of presentation becomes more emphatically ‘economic’, with graphs, statistics and equations, in these final chapters. This densely-packed and ambitious book has been designed - I presume - as a course text but may also be used as a resource for dipping into and quarrying for information on specific themes. It has the enormous merit of being very wide ranging in space and time, and calling on research findings in many disciplines. Its bibliography is structured clearly by chapter and is composed almost entirely of French-language titles, although these include a good number of translations of work by American and British archaeologists, anthropologists and economists. Histoire des agricultures du monde is a remarkable achieve- ment which demonstrates an impressive ability to relate present issues and crises in the rural world to their historical antecedents. The complementary roles of the authors as academics and as agricultural consultants are exploited to the full. The book is very well priced and deserves to be read beyond the francophone world but, knowing the reluctance of many readers to tackle anything that is not in English, this may not be the case. HUGH CLOUT Department of Geography University College London, U.K. PII: SO743-0167(98)00034-S Fields Without Dreams: Defending the Agrarian Idea, Victor Davis Hanson. 289 pp. 1996. New York: The Free Press. $23US, pbk, $31US hbk, ISBN O-684-82299-7 This autobiography is the story of a professor who quit his job in the Classics Department at California State Univer- sity (CSU) in Fresno to operate a fruit farm that had been owned and worked by his morhter’s family for 120 years. He largely followed the example of his parents, who had saved this family farm by getting college degrees, living on the farm but not working on it full-time, yet working for it by donating critical inflows of nonfarm cash, uncompen- sated services (e.g., tractor repairs, bookkeeping, welding), and outright labor at peak harvest periods. The one detail that makes his relationship to this farm different from his parents’ is that he joined two brothers and a cousin as full-time owner-operators. One would expect that such special advantages as the Ph.D. and the partnership with others dedicated by common blood to ancestral orchards and vineyards would guarantee success. For this reader, the suspense of the book lay in learning whether Hanson would eventually succeed in his career as a farmer or come to see his story as a modern Greek tragedy.