Endangered Maize

"Maize seems to have found its best biographer in Helen Anne Curry. Other grains will be envious. Endangered Maize is a well-nigh comprehensive and nuanced account of the genetic, social, and agronomic career of this cultivar and its fraught future. It avoids all the clichés. Elegantly written, deeply informed, and technically meticulous."--James C. Scott, Sterling Professor of Political Science and Professor of Anthropology, Yale University "In this sweeping history, Helen Anne Curry does the great service of uncovering the money, the philanthro-capitalism, and the imperial assumptions behind doctrines of endangerment. Her solution demands a democratic transformation in the configurations of power that license the conservation business and its contemporary catastrophist narratives. But that's as it should be. As she amply demonstrates, Indigenous and peasant stewardship of maize has long subverted the policing of genetic purity that state and capital have imposed."--Raj Patel, author of Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System "Curry's story of maize is a fresh, provocative, and sharply argued critique of the plant genetic scarcity myth. Her keen assessment of agribusiness machinations is one of the best ever."--Deborah Fitzgerald, author of Every Farm a Factory: The Industrial Ideal in American Agriculture "Curry's book is an engaging, thought-provoking, carefully researched history of maize varietal collections, classification, and breeding projects. By exploring shifts in the narratives about maize varietal diversity over time, and in different contexts, this book raises compelling questions about how we understand and measure biodiversity more broadly."--Elizabeth Fitting, author of The Struggle for Maize: Campesinos, Workers, and Transgenic Corn in the Mexican Countryside