For agricultural historians, few historical narratives are as ubiquitous and debated as those about the Green Revolution. The Green Revolution is more than a narrative, however. For farmers throughout the Global South and scientists and government officials in the Global North, the Green Revolution was a set of technologies, a political strategy, and a model for development. Today, as philanthropists and a new wave of scientists are calling for and enacting a “new” Green Revolution, historical perspectives on the original Green Revolution are as relevant as ever. The “new narratives of the Green Revolution” roundtable in the summer 2017 issue of this journal serves as a historiographic marker of how and why both new and old Green Revolutions persist.
Aaron Eddens's Seeding Empire takes a genealogical approach to the Green Revolution. Eddens weaves together a historical biography of Norman Borlaug, widely considered to be the “father of the Green Revolution,”...
