Океани зерна. Як американське збіжжя змінило світ

by Scott Reynolds Nelson, Ольга Дубневич (Translator)

«Океани зерна. Як американськe збіжжя змінило світ» – це книга, що була опублікована 22 лютого 2022 року та описує суперництво світових імперій у контролі за виробництвом та продажем зерна протягом кількох століть. Про цю книгу писали BBC, CBC, The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, та The New York Review of Books.

Ця книга починається з Одеси — а точніше, одеського порту. Там і закінчується. Книга розповідає історію світового політичного процесу, економічного розвитку та урбанізації, промислової революції та війн в Європі та США в контексті контролю за виробництвом хліба і маршрутами експорту зерна. Це доволі незвичний погляд на проблему, адже в школі такої історії не викладають.

У школі нам розповідають про битви, але ми ніколи не заглиблюємось у питання, як так сталось, що солдати однієї з армій були голодними. Ми вивчаємо біографії видатних полководців, але мало знаємо про тих, хто забезпечував коней тисячами тонн вівса, будував залізниці та за законом воєнного часу судив корупціонерів і мародерів.

Зараз ми вже знаємо, що таке безпека та стабільність зернових коридорів та як голод впливає на політичний баланс. Ця книга розкриє вам історію того, як підрив каналів постачання продовольства приводив до політичних конфліктів та воєн.

Так, нічого не змінилось. Століттями захоплення хлібодайних земель та експортно-імпортних маршрутів призводило до тяжких наслідків для країн і народів. Все це безпосередньо пов’язано із українськими чорноземами та морськими портами.

Тут всі — чумаки, античні греки, османи, поляки, євреї, британці, американці, французи, німці, російські імперці та українські селяни. Тут все — Босфор и Дарданелли, чума, «картопляний голод», «хлібні бунти», Кримські та Балканські війни, Французькі революції, скасування рабства та Громадянська війна у США, Російсько-Японська війна, Перша світова, російські комуністи та незалежна Українська держава.

Всі великі війни завжди були війнами за хліб. Російська війна проти України — не виключення. Це захоплююча книга про історію Одеси та роль аграрного бізнесу у світовій історії.

Ви по-іншому подивитесь на історію та війну, що триває, після цієї книги.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Economics, Agriculture, Food, World History, United States

388 pages, Hardcover

First published February 22, 2022

About the author

SCOTT REYNOLDS NELSON is the author of Steel Drivin' Man, which won the National Award for Arts Writing, the Anisfield-Wolf Literary Prize, the Merle Curti Prize for best book in U.S. history, and the Virginia Literary Award for Nonfiction. His young adult book, Ain't Nothing But a Man (written with Marc Aronson) won seven national awards, including the Jane Addams Prize for best book on social justice.

Reviews

[Clif Hostetler · Rating 3 out of 5]

I grew up on a Kansas wheat farm so I anticipated maybe learning something about my past from this book. Grain, and American wheat in particular, is mentioned in this book, but it seemed to me that most of the book is devoted to history of European economics. The abundance of cheap American grain had progressive and disruptive financial effects on European economies, politics, and war.

I suggest that the second half of the book could fit under the title of "How Alexander Parvus caused World War I." The pseudonymous “Parvus” was a radical journalist, a revolutionary, and a hugely successful businessman. But he was much more—in 1917 he helped inspire Germany to send Lenin and some comrades to St. Petersburg to foment the revolution that would knock Russia out of the war. In Parvus’s opinion, grain-trading routes had preceded, made and shaped empires—or they could also break them. Parvus was pro-communist, but the writers of Communist history are reluctant to include his story because he became wealthy from his behind the scenes capitalistic operations which included trading grain.

There's a lot more history in this book than the story of grain. Readers of this book will find extraordinary detail and entertainingly wild digressions that run through a narrative that has room for, to take a random sample, Irish potato famine, Roman milestones, Prussian logistics, one of Britain’s greatest financial scandals, quite a bit of Marxism, the spread of white bread and Isaac Newton’s (possible) prediction that the world would end in 1866.

One particularly interesting story is how a system of grain futures was developed during the American Civil War in order to assure delivery of food and fodder at a set price to the Union troops in the West. The Chicago Board of Trade was formed in 1964 soon after the Civil War with companies such as Cargill, Bunge Corp, and Archer Daniels Midland having their origin in that era.

[Boudewijn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unveiling grain's profound influence on civilizations, economies, and geopolitics

Throughout history, the cultivation and distribution of grain has played a pivotal role in shaping the destiny of humankind. Surplus grain production facilitated urbanization and the rise of complex societies. Grain, transported along river routes, overland trade routes, and across seas, forged connections between disparate regions and cultures. Interruptions in grain supply due to conflicts or political upheavals often led to economic turmoil and civil unrest.

In this book, author Scott Reynolds Nelson traces the flow of grain and how the two most productive regions, Ukraine and the United States. As the Europe's breadbasket, the control over Ukraine's grain production and trade routes has been a factor in influencing regional power dynamics and the relationships between neighboring empires and states. Russia's expansion under Catherine the Great meant that Russia now controlled Europe's grain production. However, the Ottoman empire controlled the trade routes via the Bosporus strait. This allowed Russia to leverage its control over Ukrainian grain production for economic, political, and strategic purposes - and also explains her interest in Constantinople. Controlling Constantinople would provide Russia with access to key maritime trade routes and strengthen its influence over naval and commercial activities in the region and fully control the grain trade.

The United States became a major grain exporter during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with significant expansion occurring in the latter half of the 19th century. According to Nelson the Homestead Act of 1862, the expansion of the railroads and above all the the practice of futures trading helped to ensure stability in the supply chain, provided a mechanism for managing price risk and allowed the United States to surpass the Ukraine in the world grain trade.

Nelson traces the role of grain and its influence on social-economic topics. He paints the grain trade acting as a catalyst, drawing together both labor and capital where sustenance is abundant and harbors are deep. The grain trade sparked waves of immigration, fueled the engines of industrialization, and gave rise to sprawling urban landscapes. Cities like London, Paris, and Amsterdam saw their populations doubling, interspersed with the various grain crises. Nelson pays his respect to Israel Lazarevich Gelfand (better known as Parvus), "a famous revolutionary whom you probably never have heard of", who believed that the grain trade played a crucial role in shaping the dynamics of imperialist powers, economic exploitation, and social unrest, which in turn could provide opportunities for revolutionary change.

Oceans of Grain is a captivating journey and narrative unfolds against the vibrant backdrop of Athens, Constantinople, and Moscow and the American plains. The narrative unearths the intricate connections between the ascent of Germany and Italy, the decline of Austria and Turkey, and Europe's feverish scramble for empire.

The book's resonance was made even more palpable to me, as news of Russia's decision not to extend the Ukraine grain deal in July 2023 was taken while I read the book. "Oceans of Grain" made me understand the implications, shining a light on the multifaceted dance between grain, geopolitics, and the destiny of humankind.

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Remarkable History Of Wheat As Agent Of Change. This is one that I could make a case for either 4 or 5 stars for, and because of the doubt I ultimately sided with 5. The reason here is that while there is indeed considerable time spent on how American wheat of the Civil War/ Reconstruction era (and later) destabilized Europe and eventually led to the late 19th/ 20th/ 21st century histories we know and are actively living, there is also quite a bit establishing the history of wheat being a similar disruptor throughout all of recorded human history. Thus, while the description of the book paints it mostly as a tale of the past 150 ish years, it is actually a tale of the entirety of human existence and instead of the lasting points being about the more recent history, the lasting points (at least for this reader) are more about the overall history. Which was the crux of my internal debate. In other words, no matter the focus or points retained, this is a truly remarkable history of a particular commodity that gives a more complete understanding of major world events, particularly over the last 150 ish years. Very much recommended.

[Griffin Postley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Solid, better than I expected. Oddly obsessed focused on one man for a general history of grain, though I understand why.

[Pete · Rating 3 out of 5]

Oceans of Grain : How American Wheat Remade the World (2022) by Scott Reynolds Nelson purports to be about how important the grain trade and in particular US wheat was. Which some of the book is. But it’s also substantially about how Alexander Parvus and his actions that contributed to the Russian Revolution.

There are some really good parts to the book. The first few chapters about how important imported wheat was for various empires. The book makes you think about what a challenge feeding a large city would have been prior to motorized transport.

The book has a fascinating description of how the Union Army shipped grain around for the American Civil War and how important this was for Union victory. The role of the Chicago Board of Trade is also really interesting.

Quite a bit is written about the rise of the grain growing in the Ukraine. This leads into the story of Parvus, who was the son of a Jewish grain trader who worked in Odessa. This is surprising in a book that has a title indicating it is about American wheat. Parvus is genuinely an interesting figure and his role in revolutionary Russian politics is also interesting, but it’s far from American wheat.

The role of Ukrainian wheat is very topical today with the Russian invasion of Ukraine continuing.

The book describes wheat as being the crucial foodstuff for feeding cities without a more careful analysis of how many calories come from wheat and what comes from other sources. There really is scope for a Vaclav Smil book about the importance of getting food to cities and to troops has been in history.

Oceans of Grain really does meander. The best part of the book are very interesting and thought provoking but for a book that is allegedly about American wheat there is really too much about Parvus and his role in the Russian Revolution.

[Ren Griffin · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a fun book. It’s fascinating to view grain as the force hidden in the shadows that moves and forms empires. But it’s just a commodity study that tries to give a simple answer to complex issues. I’m not convinced that cotton isn’t more important to the rise of the American empire, but I am convinced by Nelson’s argument surrounding dynamite and the often-overlooked power that food has. With the Ukraine/Russia focus, the argument is seductive. But there are some glaring issues. How can we talk about the cheapness of grain without prices and economic data? How can we talk about how American grain remade the world by only focusing on Europe and the United States? Where is the Global South in this story? And farmers? It’s a fun concept that highlights the importance of trade, particularly food trade, but in the end is not entirely convincing.

[David]

Critics will say, is it wise to write a history of the world that revolves around a single commodity? I say, yes. As would-be scholars, we try not to be reductive, but if reductive we must be, then we could do worse than argue that all of human history (or at least the important parts) consists of hungry people trying to secure their next meal. Very entertaining book.

[Barksdale Penick · Rating 4 out of 5]

General historical review of the role of wheat in relatively recent history—the 19 century onward. The extraordinary growth of the American export market following the Civil War provides the basis for the strongest portions of this book. In the early 19th century, Russia developed a large export market to Western Europe, especially after the potato famine, with reliable and affordable grain (from Ukraine). This market of course was accompanied by collateral businesses, such as financing and brokering. Then the US grain hit the market and caused a huge price drop in grain and fatally disrupted the existing markets. Not only was US production increasing in excess of the needs of the US population, but transportation across the ocean was not expensive and wheat traveled so well that eating habits in Europe were affected by inexpensive wheat flour. In European wheat growing areas, Russia but also a number of others, land values dropped and many lost their land. European wheat financiers also suffered as the industry collapsed. But the presence of all that cheap food allowed urban European populations to work in manufacturing, which was previously constrained by higher food prices in cities. After the growth in US exports in the 19th century, the cost of food in European cities could be cheaper than in the country. All of this supported the 19th century industrialization boom in Europe.
From there the author suggests that among other reasons, the risk of losing wheat export markets motivated Russia to seek out a conflict with the Ottoman Empire and use it a means to seize Istanbul. Therefore, the author argues, that grain was key to breakout of WWI. This made some sense but also seemed a little overstated, as does the author’s assertion that transportation of grain by railroad won the Civil War for the North. While wheat most definitely affected historical trends, the author may have ascribed a bit too much importance to its role to burnish his arguments. My other quibble is that the word “physiocratic”, referring to the belief that all wealth comes from land, appears some 43 times. There had to have been a way to circumvent this overuse.
The author also does a great job explaining the role of Turkey and Germany in the fall of the Tsars and Imperial Russia. A Russian named Parvus grew up in the grain trade in Odessa and eventually settled in Turkey, where he played an important role in the management of the Turkey’s economy. He also developed ties to Germany during WWI, and apparently was instrumental in the German decision to send gold to Russia to support the 1917 revolution and thereby obtain peace on its eastern front. It seems Parvus arranged for Turkey to send grain to Germany, which had seen food riots. Parvus, who was a dedicated communist, ended up becoming rich from the grain trade, and so was disparaged by some of his fellow travelers, but it seems he kept his eye on the goal of ending the Tsarist regime. Some of this strays a bit from the overall theme of grain in recent world history but it was very well done.

[Nan · Rating 5 out of 5]

While I read a fair amount of history, this book has revolutionized my understanding of U.S. history from the Civil War forward, European history, especially the start of World War I, and provided insight into the motivation of Russia's current invasion of Ukraine. Really insightful in bringing together different threads of history.

[Jeremy · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fantastic micro-history of one of the most important pieces of civilization. Nelson takes us on a fascinating journey through human history weaving in myth, songs, and stories to tell the history of humans and wheat. Should go on everyone's shelf right next to Kurlansky's Salt.

[João Maia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Um livro com uma clara linha argumentativa, mas que nem por isso deixa de procurar alicerçá-la com centenas de referências bibliográficas. O título é enganador se o leitor espera com ele ter uma visão global de toda a História da produção e comercialização dos cereais. No entanto, é um excecional volume para compreender as origens do comércio de cereais e o desenvolvimento do mesmo na Antiguidade, voltando a ser um excelente livro na explicação e elaboração de uma tese sobre o comércio, produção e transformação dos cereais entre os séculos XVIII a XX (até à década de 20).

[Nadia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Мені було дуже цікаво. Годний нонфік з економічної історії товарних ринків, а саме міжнародної торгівлі зерном і борошном (критична основа продовольчої безпеки), до 1924 року. Основна розповідь стосується того, як зерно з США "перемогло" зерно з російської імперії у другій половині 19 століття на ринках Європи, і до чого це все привело. І в цій історії багато Одеси, України, чорнозему і тд.

Хотілося би, щоб був написаний сіквел про 1924 - 2024 рр.

Довелось гуглити багато інформації зі сфери фінансів, податків, торгових угод, кредитів і тд. Усілякі векселі, ф'ючерси, асигнації і тп.

[Keith Smith · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very detailed account of the importance of European and Western Asia wheat up through the post WWI years. The title is somewhat misleading about American grain but if you read between the lines you can infer the importance. I found the history of Ukrainian wheat as a driver and destroyer of empires fascinating given the current history of that region.

[Sol Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

I feel like this fell short as a history book and as a bread book. It was fine.

[Chris Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is in my top five list of all time. It IS about grain (primarily wheat), but it is about so much more. Mr. Nelson makes the case that grain is the key ingredient in development, survival, politics, economics, war, peace, and globalization. He makes his points with a very readable conversational style while providing anecdotes and supporting information. Starting from prehistoric times, he takes us through the famine years of the early Soviet period in Russia. He relies on the work of Parvus, who seems to be deserving of a book on his own, but Mr. Nelson gives his work a generous and thoughtful introduction here.

[LJ Lombos · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating look at how this staple grain from the United States shaped some of the most consequential wartime events in history. There are also indirect observations of the earliest forms of supply chain risks such as the Russian Empire's dependence on its southern and western fringes for stockpiles made it vulnerable to neighboring powers. Some parts are dry but, overall, the book is a breath of fresh air on how historical narratives are presented.

[Cade · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book makes the classic mistake of many histories of specific things. It confuses the true statement that "this thing I studied is important, so major societal shifts have correspondingly impacted how we procure and use this thing" with the solipsistic statement that "this thing I studied is important, so changes in how we procure and use this thing has driven all major societal shifts." Mark Kurlansky's Salt is an example of a much better book that makes the same error.

The thing that pushed this book down to one star for me was that the author seems to casually take for granted a Marxist view of the world. He quotes and cites a particular Marxist intellectual from the early 20th century at length. He characterizes America as an empire equivalent to traditional empires of conquest without comment or qualifications. I don't mind reading books by academics with left-leaning sensibilities, but being a Marxist apologist is too much for me.

[Ben · Rating 2 out of 5]

The frequent exaggerations and overlooking of other factors led to me constantly doubting the credibility of the narrative. I'm skeptical of all the author's hypotheses, and in the end didn't get much from the history.

> For long distances, sailing ships were more efficient until almost the end of the century. A coal-powered steamship in the 1860s consumed at least one hundred tons of coal a day at $15 a ton. The coal on a steamship counted for roughly half the weight capacity of any ship fitted for the Atlantic trade; the engine occupied half the ship’s total volume. As coal disappeared into the boiler, steamships had to take on water just to “stay in trim” to maintain speed and stability. A sailing ship, by comparison, had a smaller cost and a much longer reach. Until the 1920s sailing ships were still used to bring coal to island coaling stations.

[Ron Nurmi · Rating 5 out of 5]

A look at how American wheat affected the rest of the world. The author makes a convincing case that American grain along with the grain from the Ukraine region allowed some empires to rise and fall. There is not much coverage of the grain in the US rather its effect on the rest of the world, especially after the US Civil War.

[Eric Grunder · Rating 4 out of 5]

An army marches on its stomach, is an adage often attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte despite variations of that idea being tossed about even before the British started calling him Little Boney.
Adages become adages because of the concise truth they contain. Historian Scott Reynolds Nelson expands this idea into some considerably less concise in his new book, Oceans of Grain/How American Wheat Remade the World. Nelson, although he doesn’t put it this way, argues the amber waves of grain pushed about by westerlies in Kansas don’t get the historic respect they deserve. After reading his 277-page argument, I’ll never look at my breakfast cereal the same way again.
To Nelson, the trajectory of not just armies have been shaped by the paths of grain (especially grain coming out of the Ukrainian steppes and flowing largely out of Odesa on the Black Sea and out the American heartland and across the Atlantic to Europe). He paints a much more complex picture. For example, World War I is often cast as the result of a series of entangling treaties that emerged with the rise of the modern German state after the Franco-Prussian War. As that version goes, the 1914 assassination of Archduke Ferdinand was the tripwire that set Europe’s armies on the march.
Nelson argues with considerable evidence that food, getting it and controlling it, if not the root cause of that war and others certainly was on the minds of those controlling its levers.
Nelson moves quickly through history pouring out crop information, financial deals, ever shifting alliances and trade routes and such. It is a complex history (but then isn’t history?) that could have been aided with more maps and charts giving a quick visual recap of the author’s narrative. For example, a map showing trade routes and relative production levels through time would have helped.
This is a new way of looking at history and, although written before Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine. Nelson grain-is-central interpretation brings a convincing perspective to Russia’s designs on that region, designs that have persisted at least since the time of Catherine the Great.

[Ajay · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Oceans of Grain: How American Wheat Remade the World" is a remarkable work of international history that astounds with its scope, depth, and originality. It is a gripping narrative that charts the rise and influence of wheat as a force that shaped empires, economies, and societies from the ancient world to the twentieth century.

The book traverses a vast timeline, highlighting the pivotal role of the "Black Lands" of modern Ukraine—the fertile breadbasket of the world—through ancient Greece, Rome, and Europe’s ascent. It also delves into the European colonization of North America’s Great Lakes and rivers, unraveling how the rivalry between "King Cotton" and "King Wheat" contributed to the Civil War and how America's dominance in the international wheat market led to profound changes around the globe including mass migration, urbanization, and imperialism.

This book challenged and transformed my understanding of the United States and the world during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Its insights are thought-provoking and deeply impactful.

I was taken away by the portrait of Alexander Parvus whose story as an intellectual and political actor is unparalleled -- from economic commentary that would revise upon Marx's work to intervention in World War 1 -- both to save the Ottoman Empire and destroy the Russian Empire.

That said, I found myself wishing for an even broader narrative. The focus on the United States and Russia, while compelling, excludes other important wheat-producing regions such as Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Argentina, and India. Moreover, the book concludes with World War I, leaving me curious about how this story unfolds through pivotal events like the Great Depression, World War II, the Green Revolution, and into the modern day.

Nonetheless, Oceans of Grain is an extraordinary achievement. For anyone interested in the intersections of history, economics, and agriculture, this is an absolute must-read.

[Colleen · Rating 5 out of 5]

When the Civil War tore the US apart the Union Army found itself unable to supply troops with enough food to feed the soldiers and horses so the generals hired grain merchants from Wall Street to deal with the problem. They hired a separate army of men to lay track, maintain trains, and ship grain from the states where wheat and oats grew to the mills and bakeries near the Potomac where they could distribute it to the advancing Union army. General Sherman was not able to march through the South until the rail 'cracker line' was completed. After the Civil War, wheat was exported to Britain and Antwerp instead of cotton. Citizens were encouraged to farm the great plains after Native Americans were evicted so fast clipper ships loaded with wheat left for Europe and returned with migrants willing to farm the plains. Cotton growing declined because the freed slave population were still treated as subjects and did not share in the profits of the plantation owners. Russian landowners treated their serfs like subjects, too but Russia had been exporting grain to Antwerp by ship since Catherine the Great took Ukraine. Odessa was rich, but Ukrainians were poor. When the wheat crops failed in Russia or the rest of Europe the subjects overthrew their rulers. Parvus was a major player in the communist theorists like Trotsky, Lenin, and Rosa Luxemberg but he had decades under his belt to learn how the shipment of grain was the key to turning an empire with elites running things into a country of citizens running the government. This author explains WWI with a view to how supplying wheat to Europe changed the alliances and outcome of the war. Parvus' role was erased by the Nazis when they rose to power because Parvus was both Jewish and a Communist, but this author finds his hand in directing (or blocking) wheat trade in both Turkey and Germany in WWI.

[Kenneth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Given the conquest of the academy by the left, the best one can do in most academic histories are those written on the basis of unorthodox marxists. This is such a book. It is more or less an exposition of the thoughts of Alexander Parvus the son of a Jewish Ukrainian farmer and grain trader who was a journalist and eventually political fixer, grain trader, and gun runner and an advisor to both the Young Turks and to the German secret service, influential in both. So much so that it was he who convinced the German secret service to put Lenin (a friend of his) on the sealed train to St. Petersburg that launched the Russian Revolution of 1917. Though a communist, he also made a gigantic fortune and lived to the end of his days (1924) in a mansion in the Wansee district of Berlin. The first third of the book is probably the best and it serves as a physiocratic history of the world to about 1873 at which point it more or less becomes a biography of Parvus himself. This is of course fascinating though the leftward lean of the author gets a bit more difficult to handle as the book goes on. In the final chapter he makes the case that the United States isn't really so different in imperial terms than Tsarist Russia, the Qing Empire or Ottoman Turkey and that America is pretty much as evil as any other tyranny, is what it takes to get published these days. Naturally the starvation by the Soviets of the millions of Ukranians and the special elimination of the kulaks from whom Parvus sprang gets a single sentence in the epilogue and is written in the passive voice. Still, a fascinating and highly readable book.

[Jordan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a fascinating book. I’ll be buying more copies and gifting them. With a better editor, or perhaps less of a larger agenda beyond the thesis, it would have been 5 stars.

However, as fascinating as the book is, it has a number of significant vices.

First, it is the history of Russian grain, and then it is a history of grain trade and it’s influence on the industrial revolution in Europe, and only at the margins does American grain appear in the examination of the birth of grain futures, and in how American grain opened pathways to migration from Europe to America. Those tangents are never fleshed out which leads to the second problem.

The author, as most intelligent but undisciplined people are want to do, introduces a number of assumptions and assertions scattershot throughout the book, worst of all in the conclusion, that are entirely unrelated to the examination of grain pathways and structures of governances that is the heart of his book. It should give any reader great pause about the biases of such an author and whether such assertions are indeed lack of impulse control or more furtive attempts at conscripting unsuspecting readers.

Lastly, significant portions of the book are derivative of a writer named Parvus. By the end, the extensive re-examination of his work makes sense, but again, there is a heavy reliance on Parvus’s writings and own arguments in this book.

Despite these significant problems, the main thesis and supporting data and stories are fascinating and it is well worth the read. I would just caution against blindly trusting all the author’s assumptions and assertions.

[Glo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Firstly, I would like to thank Scott Reynolds Nelson, NetGalley and OrangeSky Audio for a copy in exchange for an honest review.

**** This is a review of the audiobook version.

‘Oceans of Grain’ can be considered an interpretation of history through the bonds of the wheat trade on many important events, mainly in Europe and the United States during the last centuries up to WWI. We all know wheat is an important commodity in our daily lives, but it is money too: ‘loans, futures and options’. The essay points out at the implications of innovation in transportation (nitroglycerine, steam boats, sail boats, ...) in the global economy, the significance of geography, and the disruption of previous markets and the consequences in society. To sum up, it is a thought-provoking account.

Honestly, I am a layperson in terms of History. And even though I cannot analyze or compare in depth the historical facts presented, generally speaking this reinterpretation of history has been an informative reading to me, maybe biased, especially at the ending conclusions, but interesting.

About the audiobook, the narrator, Jason Arnold, is very professional. Good intonation and pace, and a very agreeable voice.

Finally, I would recommend reading the audiobook in combination with its book format due to the huge amount of data.

[Casey · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good book, providing a history of the grain trade and particularly its evolution and affect on the world in the period between 1860 and 1918. The author, American historian Scott Reynolds Nelson, proposes a system-centric assessment for the ebb and flow of history in the years immediately before and during World War I. At the center of this system is wheat, whose expanding cultivation served as the primary fuel for global industrialization. Alongside wheat in this system is glycerin (dynamite), to enable sea ports and railroads, and innovative financial instruments, to smooth the flow of goods. Nelson proposes that first Ukrainian, then American, wheat was the main driver in the period of economic globalization prior to World War I. Unfortunately, the author blurred this baseline thesis by attempting to expand the argument to make grain the foundational commodity for the 20th century’s battle of the -isms. But, irrespective of these blurry asides, the book does a great job explaining how a single critical commodity becomes influential in tying individual economic actors around the globe closer together. A great book for understanding the financial and commercial forces behind global linkages. Highly recommended as a means to understanding how a globalized system develops.

[Richard Thompson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Looking at history through the lens of a single commodity can be interesting and can reveal new truths. I enjoyed "Cod" and have thought about reading "Salt," though I haven't gotten around to it yet. But this isn't just history told from the point of view of the farmers, millers, merchants and bankers of grain. Mr. Nelson makes the argument that grain is the best explanatory driving force in the 18th and 19th century histories of Europe and America. He dismisses the industrial revolution, the wars, the ambitions of rulers, nationalism, and the rise of finance as secondary phenomena. Nor does he credit any of the other single force drivers of history that other people have trotted out like geography or the class struggle or some sort of crazy conspiracy. In this book everything takes a back seat to the story of grain. It's nonsense. His claim is too strong. Single driver theories are all just wrong. People and their societies are too complicated. But it is true that grain is important, probably more important we normally give it credit for being, and this book was helpful in shedding light on that.

[Dylan · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5

The intro and first chapter are surprisingly poor for a book with such insight.

Like most single commodity books, it stretches at times to prove why wheat is the *most* important; opting for “caused” over “contributed to” a bit too often. But the middle half of the book is overall excellent, well written and insightful.

The final quarter loses the germ of the story, pun intended, in favor of a biography of an important but lesser known grain trader slash Marxist theorist. I’m torn on this because it is genuinely interesting but leaves quite a bit of wheat related history untold or under-explored. As a Kansan, I have a parochial grudge that the Sunflower State received only passing mentions, though it’s more objectively unfortunate that modern Ukrainian politics is shoved into a brief conclusion.

[Mandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A global history of grain, how it affected not only food supply but the rise and fall of empires, how the grain trade routes were integral to the politics of power, and how the price of grain, and therefore bread, influenced world history. It’s an intriguing premise. I’m not knowledgeable enough to judge whether all the author claims is irrefutable fact – certainly some reviewers have stated that there are errors here – but for the lay reader there’s a lot to learn and it gave me a different perspective on commerce and the importance of commodities. Some of it I found heavy-going – I don’t find figures easy to grasp, and there are a lot here – and it felt repetitive on occasion, but the story of how one commodity is central to human existence, right back to pre-history, and how it shaped our modern world opened my mind to new ideas. Always a good thing.

[Matthew LaPine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting read. This book presents a theory that the motivation for many international conflicts over long history has been access to and control of grain, specifically, wheat. It starts several hundred years ago and goes through roughly World War I.

And until American wheat became the dominant source of wheat in the world, it was Ukraine. The book details Russia's annexation of Ukraine and development of transport, sale and distribution by Catherine the Great. We learn that major ports like Odessa came into existence primarily as a shipping center for wheat.

This book is particularly relevant now, providing insight into historical motivations behind Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine.