The State of Conservation
Rural America and the Conservation-Industrial Complex since 1920
By Joshua Nygren
322 pp., 6.125 x 9.25, 25 halftones, 2 maps, 2 tables
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Paperback ISBN: 978-1-4696-8049-1
Published: January 2025 -
Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-4696-8048-4
Published: January 2025
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The conservation-industrial complex promoted a development-oriented brand of conservation that aided the rise of large-scale, capital-intensive agriculture which continues today. It also reshaped the physical and political landscapes of the country, leading to impressive conservation victories and spectacular failures by privileging some environments, degrading others, and intensifying farm depopulation. In the name of environmental protection, agricultural conservation made rural America less equal.
About the Author
Joshua Nygren is associate professor of history at the University of Central Missouri.
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Reviews
"Lucidly written and brimming with eye-popping detail, Nygren’s history delivers vital context for current debates around the US farm bill. A must-read for anyone interested in the troubled state of US agriculture."—Tom Philpott, author of Perilous Bounty
"Brilliant. You will never look at conservation in rural America the same way again after reading this book."—Bart Elmore, author of Country Capitalism
"A full, twentieth-century treatment of agricultural conservation is well overdue, and this book stands immediately as definitive."—Sarah T. Phillips, author of This Land, This Nation