‘Planting the Seeds of Research’ explores why by the beginnings of the twentieth century the United States dominated agricultural production worldwide. The thesis is that the ultimate investments made by the United States Department of Agriculture and State governments created the research structure that made American agriculture spectacularly successful. The social commitment, by business, government and farmers built the productive capabilities that generated sustainable prosperity in American agriculture. The ultimate investment in agriculture enabled Americans over time to spend less of their disposable income on food and more on other goods and services, and compete in international agricultural markets.
“Planting the Seeds of Research is a timely and provocative analysis of the role of the agricultural sector in America’s modern economic development and of the part played by the US government in promoting that sector. By deftly combining agricultural history, political history and administrative history, Ferleger provides readers with a new appreciation of the ways in which the public and private sectors worked together to make American agriculture the most productive in the world.”
—Peter A. Coclanis, Albert R. Newsome Distinguished Professor of History, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA
“Over decades, Louis Ferleger has examined how the United States emerged as an unrivaled economic powerhouse through continuous, critical investment in scientific agriculture. Government in partnership with the private sector drew on European—especially German—models to develop education, innovation, expertise and research at every level.”
—David Moltke-Hansen, Independent Scholar, Past President of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania
Louis A. Ferleger is professor of history at Boston University, USA, and former chair of its History Department. He has published, edited or co-authored seven books. The former executive director of the Historical Society, Ferleger was awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities Chairman’s Grant; a Earhart Foundation Fellowship; a research grant from the Twentieth Century Fund; and a Charles Warren Fellowship, Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History, Department of History, Harvard University.
Preface; Introduction: The Anatomy of the Ultimate Investment; 1. Uplifting American Agriculture: Experiment Stations Scientists and the Office of Experiment Stations in the Early Years after the Hatch Act; 2. Higher Education for an Innovative Economy: Land-Grant Colleges and the Managerial Revolution in America; 3. Arming America Agriculture for the Twentieth Century: How the USDA’s Top Managers Promoted Agricultural Development; 4. Transatlantic Travails: German Experiment Stations and the Transformation of American Agriculture; 5. European Agricultural Development and Institutional Change: How German Experiment Stations Influenced American Stations, 1870-1920; 6. The Managerial Revolution and the Developmental State: The Case of US Agriculture; Index.
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