Rice: Global Networks and New Histories

Cambridge University Press
Edition: 1st ed, 2/19/2015
EAN 9781107044395, ISBN10: 1107044391

Hardcover, 446 pages, 22.8 x 15.2 x 3.3 cm
Language: English

Rice today is food to half the world's population. Its history is inextricably entangled with the emergence of colonialism, the global networks of industrial capitalism, and the modern world economy. The history of rice is currently a vital and innovative field of research attracting serious attention, but no attempt has yet been made to write a history of rice and its place in the rise of capitalism from a global and comparative perspective. Rice is a first step toward such a history. The fifteen chapters, written by specialists on Africa, the Americas, and Asia, are premised on the utility of a truly international approach to history. Each brings a new approach that unsettles prevailing narratives and suggests new connections. Together they cast new light on the significant roles of rice as crop, food, and commodity, and shape historical trajectories and interregional linkages in Africa, the Americas, Europe, and Asia.

Foreword Giorgio Riello
Preface
global networks and new histories of rice Francesca Bray
Part I. Purity and Promiscuity
Introduction Francesca Bray
1. Global visions vs local complexity
experts wrestle with the problem of development Jonathan Harwood
2. Rice, sugar, and livestock in Java, 1820–1940
Geertz's Agricultural Involution 50 years on Peter Boomgaard and Pieter M. Kroonenberg
3. A desire to eat well
rice and the market in eighteenth-century China Sui-wai Cheung
4. Rice and maritime modernity
the modern Chinese state and the South China Sea rice trade Seung-Joon Lee
5. Promiscuous transmission and encapsulated knowledge
a material-semiotic approach to modern rice in the Mekong David Biggs
6. Red and white rice in the vicinity of Sierra Leone
linked histories of slavery, emancipation and seed selection Bruce Mouser, Edwin Nuijten, Florent Okry and Paul Richards
Part II. Environmental Matters
Introduction Edda Fields-Black
7. Rice on the Upper Guinea Coast
a regional perspective based on interdisciplinary sources and methods Edda Fields-Black
8. Reserving water
environmental and technological relationships with colonial South Carolina inland rice plantations Hayden Smith
9. Asian rice in Africa
plant genetics and crop history Erik Gilbert
10. When Jola granaries were full Olga F. Linares
11. Of health and harvests
seasonal mortality and commercial rice cultivation in the Punjab and Bengal regions of South Asia Lauren Minsky
Part III. Power and Control
Introduction Peter Coclanis
12. The cultural meaning of work
the 'Black Rice Debate' reconsidered Walter Hawthorne
13. White rice
the Midwestern origins of the modern rice industry in the United States Peter Coclanis
14. Rice and the path of economic development in Japan Penelope Francks
15. Commodities and anti-commodities
rice on Sumatra 1915–25 Harro Maat
Index
Bibliography.