Episode
🌾 Land of plenty: My chat (+transcript) with science journalist Charles C. Mann on the agricultural history you never learned
- Published
- Apr 17, 2025
- Duration seconds
- 1699
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Summary
In the 1960s, a deep anxiety set in as one thing became seemingly clear: We were headed toward population catastrophe. Paul Ehrlich’s “ The Population Bomb ” and “ The Limits to Growth ,” written by the Club of Rome, were just two publications warning of impending starvation due to simply too many humans on the earth. As the population ballooned year by year, it would simply be impossible to feed everyone. Demographers and environmentalists alike held their breath and braced for impact. Except that we didn’t starve. On the contrary, we were better fed than ever. In his article in The New Atlantis , Charles C. Mann explains that agricultural innovation — from improved fertilization and irrigation to genetic modification — has brought global hunger to a record low. Today on Faster, Please! — The Podcast , I chat with Mann about the agricultural history they didn’t teach you in school. Mann is a science journalist who has worked as a correspondent for The Atlantic , Science , and Wired magazines, and whose work has been featured in many other major publications. He is also the author of 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus and 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created , as well as The Wizard and the Prophet: Two Remarkable Scientists and Their Dueling Visions to Shape Tomorrow’s World . In This Episode * Intro to the Agricultural Revolution (2:04) * Water infrastructure (13:11) * Feeding the masses (18:20) * Indigenous America (25:20) Below is a lightly edited transcript of our conversation. Intro to the Agricultural Revolution (2:04) I don't think that people realize that the fact that most people on earth, almost the average person on earth, can feed themselves is a novel phenomenon. It's something that basically wasn't true since as far back as w…