The fruits of natural advantage : making the industrial countryside in California /

The fruits of natural advantage : making the industrial countryside in California /

Saved in:

Bibliographic Details
Author / Creator:	Stoll, Steven.
Imprint:	Berkeley : University of California Press, ©1998.
Description:	1 online resource (xix, 273 pages) : illustrations, maps
Language:	English
Subject:	Fruit trade -- California. Fruit -- California -- Marketing. Horticulture -- California. Agriculture -- Economic aspects -- California. Agriculture -- Economic aspects. Fruit -- Marketing. Fruit trade. Horticulture. California. Electronic books.
Format:	E-Resource Book
URL for this record:	http://pi.lib.uchicago.edu/1001/cat/bib/11106991

Hidden Bibliographic Details
ISBN:	9780520920200 0520920201 0585223130 9780585223131 0520211723
Digital file characteristics:	text file PDF
Notes:	Includes bibliographical references (pages 239-262) and index. Print version record.
Summary:	The once arid valleys and isolated coastal plains of California are today the center of fruit production in the United States. Steven Stoll explains how a class of capitalist farmers made California the nation's leading producer of fruit and created the first industrial countryside in America. This brilliant portrayal of California from 1880 to 1930 traces the origins, evolution, and implications of the fruit industry while providing a window through which to view the entire history of California. Stoll shows how California growers assembled chemicals, corporations, and political influence to bring the most perishable products from the most distant state to the great urban markets of North America. But what began as a compromise between a beneficent environment and intensive cultivation ultimately became threatening to the soil and exploitative of the people who worked it. Invoking history, economics, sociology, agriculture, and environmental studies, Stoll traces the often tragic repercussions of fruit farming and shows how central this story is to the development of the industrial countryside in the twentieth century.
Other form:	Print version: Stoll, Steven. Fruits of natural advantage. Berkeley : University of California Press, ©1998 0520211723

Table of Contents:

Frontmatter
Contents
Illustrations
Preface
Acknowledgments
PROLOGUE: IN THE RAIN'S SHADOW
I. The Conservation of the Countryside
2. Orchard Capitalists
3. Organize and Advertise
4. A Chemical Shield
5. White Men and Cheap Labor
6. Natural Advantages in the National Interest
EPILOGUE: RESTLESS ORCHARD
NOTES
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX