Hybrid: The History and Science of Plant Breeding |  | Author: Noel Kingsbury
Publisher: University Of Chicago Press
Category: Book
List Price: $35.00
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Rating:  3 reviews
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 512
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.9
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.4 x 1.5
ISBN: 0226437043
Dewey Decimal Number: 631.52
EAN: 9780226437040
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| • | ISBN13: 9780226437040 | | • | Condition: NEW | | • | Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark. |
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Product Description
Disheartened by the shrink-wrapped, Styrofoam-packed state of contemporary supermarket fruits and vegetables, many shoppers hark back to a more innocent time, to visions of succulent red tomatoes plucked straight from the vine, gleaming orange carrots pulled from loamy brown soil, swirling heads of green lettuce basking in the sun. With Hybrid, Noel Kingsbury reveals that even those imaginary perfect foods are themselves far from anything that could properly be called natural; rather, they represent the end of a millennia-long history of selective breeding and hybridization. Starting his story at the birth of agriculture, Kingsbury traces the history of human attempts to make plants more reliable, productive, and nutritious—a story that owes as much to accident and error as to innovation and experiment. Drawing on historical and scientific accounts, as well as a rich trove of anecdotes, Kingsbury shows how scientists, amateur breeders, and countless anonymous farmers and gardeners slowly caused the evolutionary pressures of nature to be supplanted by those of human needs—and thus led us from sparse wild grasses to succulent corn cobs, and from mealy, white wild carrots to the juicy vegetables we enjoy today. At the same time, Kingsbury reminds us that contemporary controversies over the Green Revolution and genetically modified crops are not new; plant breeding has always had a political dimension. A powerful reminder of the complicated and ever-evolving relationship between humans and the natural world, Hybrid will give readers a thoughtful new perspective on—and a renewed appreciation of—the cereal crops, vegetables, fruits, and flowers that are central to our way of life.
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| Customer Reviews:
 A Good History of Plant Breeding January 19, 2010
J. Canestrino (Lodi, CA United States)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Noel Kingsbury's Hybrid: The History and Science of Plant Breeding delivers just that, though much more of the history than the science. In all fairness, I think it strikes just the right balance for the intended audience which is the general science reader or horticultural hobbyist and not professional plant breeders. The thirty-five Technical Notes included at the end of the book provide additional information for those who are not already familiar with some of the terms used in the text. To be certain, the scope of this book would be an ambitious undertaking for any author, Kingsbury has put forth an admirable effort. By necessity the story must begin 10,000-12,000 years ago in the Fertile Crescent where pastoralists became the first agriculturalists and continue all the way through to the modern age of molecular genetics. Along the way it must encompass many crop plants and ornamental species, numerous contributors and critics and try to accurately, but without bias, reflect the social, political and religious influences on plant breeding efforts in each era.
As would be expected, the major crop plants, wheat, corn, potatoes and rice, get their fair share of coverage, but the author also manages to include short asides or honorable mentions for many other fruit and vegetable crops. He also makes a point of including a whole chapter on the history of plant breeding for ornamentals where roses and tulips get center stage. The same is true of the people who have been involved in improving plants for human use and consumption. The histories of well known figures and some of the lesser known but very influential, are thoroughly covered in the text. Men such as: Gregor Mendel, Norman Borlaug, Luther Burbank, Nikolai Vavilov, Henry A. Wallace, Henri and Philippe de Vilmorin and W. Atlee Burpee all get their share of ink and paper as well as some influential women such as Barbara McClintock. My personal hero, Dr. Henry A. Jones gets only an honorable mention. And, though sterile triploids are mentioned in passing, the story of the development of the triploid `seedless' watermelon is left out entirely as is the work done by Dr. Warren Barham to develop them. Curiously, Dr. C.M. Rick is mentioned in the Works Cited section, but gets no mention in the text during the discussions of some of the great plant hunters and plant collecting expeditions even though his efforts were substantial enough that the tomato germplasm repository has been named in his honor.
As mentioned before, the author gives a well-balanced account of the history and politics that have influenced plant breeding but it is easy to discern that his sympathies lie with the plant breeders. Even so, he fairly sums up the position of the radical Indian activist Vandana Shiva that "...scientific plant breeding is part of a plot for world domination by U.S. capitalism." The book was obviously very well researched and the for those readers who like to mine the Works Cited pages for further reading you will find plenty here to pique your interests. The author tells the story predominately from the human interest point of view, choosing to focus on the people and personalities involved and less on the technicalities. The writing style is straightforward without a lot of prose and with a distinctive English flair such as when referring to plant breeders who have passed on as having "...departed to explore the gene pool of the Elysian Fields." For me, the only two detractors were: 1) as a matter of format the author chose to use footnotes which I find distracting because they can disrupt the flow of a paragraph if you feel compelled to look down and read the footnote each time a superscript number appears. 2) The book was rife with typographical errors. Normally I might see one or two in a professionally published book, but in this one they occur with a frequency of one every two or three pages. Either this book was rushed into publication for some reason or the budget for proofreading was inadequate.
All you want to know about what you eat...and some you don't February 17, 2010
Jordan Boone (Chapel Hill, NC)
I purchased this book for an agriculture and the environment class that I am taking this semester and I just finished it. It was a pretty interesting read, but I think you would have to be at least partly interested in the subject matter. Everything from the social to the purely mechanical aspect of food production is covered. I wish there was a little more to the social aspect but I understand that that wasn't the books purpose. All in all I recommend it. I think it is important for consumers to understand how their food is produced so that we can all take part in the plans for feeding the planet in the next few decades.
 is something missing? November 23, 2009
J. barry (gill,ma)
1 out of 7 found this review helpful
somewhat puzzled that such an in depth study could be written about the history of hybrids and not once is there a mention of apomixis.
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