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Oceans of Grain

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Oceans of Grain

How American Wheat Remade the World

Basic Books,

15 min read
8 take-aways
Audio & text

What's inside?

The economic history of grain trading reveals the stories that have changed humanity.

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Editorial Rating

8

Qualities

  • Eye Opening
  • Background
  • Engaging

Recommendation

Professor Scott Reynolds Nelson takes an evocative look at political economics, largely through the lens of grain trading. This focus on seemingly simple commodities highlights how economics – in its most fundamental form, the trading of goods – shapes the complexity of human history. Nelson deftly shows that economic practicalities like food shortages, national interests and competition lay at the root of battles, wars and revolutions, particularly in 19th-century Russia, America and Ukraine, with impacts that resonate to this day. 

Summary

The story of grain is older than recorded history.

The Arab Spring rebellions in the 21st century are just the latest examples of how the price of bread can trigger political events. The desire to control grain trading routes – the Bosporus Strait acted as a “pinch point” in grain transport for thousands of years – was central to a host of 18th- and 19th-century conflicts in Europe and Asia. Grain exports played a prime role in America’s Civil War, the development of the US interstate transportation system and the dwindling of Old World agricultural empires. The grain trade even had a part in the complex causes and events of World War I: Russia and France’s fears about Germany’s power over Middle Eastern trade routes helped spark the conflict. Restricted grain imports during the war led to near starvation and food riots during Germany’s “Turnip Winter” in 1916.

Archeology shows that humans have been eating bread, in some form, for more than 14,000 years. The English language itself evidences the centrality of bread in human society: The word “lord” comes from the ancient word “hlaford,” which means...

About the Author

Scott Reynolds Nelson is a professor of humanities at the University of Georgia. He is a Guggenheim fellow and the author of five books, including the award-winning Steel Drivin’ Man.

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