---
product_id: 29987533
title: "Against the Grain: How Agriculture Has Hijacked Civilization"
brand: "richard manning"
price: "$U1564"
currency: UYU
in_stock: true
reviews_count: 9
url: https://www.desertcart.uy/products/29987533-against-the-grain-how-agriculture-has-hijacked-civilization
store_origin: UY
region: Uruguay
---

# Against the Grain: How Agriculture Has Hijacked Civilization

**Brand:** richard manning
**Price:** $U1564
**Availability:** ✅ In Stock

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- **What is this?** Against the Grain: How Agriculture Has Hijacked Civilization by richard manning
- **How much does it cost?** $U1564 with free shipping
- **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship
- **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.uy](https://www.desertcart.uy/products/29987533-against-the-grain-how-agriculture-has-hijacked-civilization)

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## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    Excellent read on a wide range of topics
  

*by M***. on Reviewed in the United States on October 8, 2017*

My original exposure to Manning's work was his 2004 essay in Harpers Magazine, "The Oil We Eat: Following the Food Chain Back to Iraq." I bought Against the Grain the following year and thoroughly enjoyed it. I remember telling people at the time that it was one of those works that had me questioning many long held assumptions. I've recommended it many times over the years and wrote about it in my blog Torqopia back in May 2006. A quote from my post:"Interestingly, in Manning's view, it wasn't simply modern industrial farming that was the problem: agriculture from its beginning had begun to deprive us of our basic humanity--the experience of being fully alive and alert in the act of hunting for our sustenance. There were so many fascinating ideas in the book: that agriculture was an emergent system that developed spontaneously from the interplay of early humans and grasses rather than something our ancestors 'invented,' that our food supply was now more a business of producing and processing commodities than simply growing food, that agriculture was responsible for more of the world's famines than any other factor, and that the Green Revolution simultaneously reduced hunger but increased the number of people living in poverty."Note that a new book by James Scott was published in August 2017 with the same title and a significant overlap in subject material. In the preface, Scott includes Manning in a long list of people who had inspired him. Still, given the possibility of confusion, I am surprised by the title.In any case, Manning's book is a good bet.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    The six inches of soil we rely on for all things carries an amazing depth and breath of organisms who are the most ...
  

*by A***T on Reviewed in the United States on March 19, 2016*

I am a scientist. The layman should read this book as I believe all will benefit from more than the prevailing viewpoint that our agricultural history was sound. Richard Manning not only suggests, he observes, compares, supposes, shows to finally conclude as have I and at least locally a lot of my peers, that our agricultural beginnings, underpinnings and practices may be another factor in what has brought us to this unsustainable world. Permaculture, viticulture and aquaculture are new forms of cultivation with more of a view to conservation than for surplus.Agriculture marks the end of our hunter gatherer days and the beginnings of a most misnamed term "civilization". Staying put caused surplus, which brought about the need for armies to protect that surplus…etcInterestingly it took over 2000 years for us to notice that wherever "civilization" flourished with certain farming practices, soon after came drought, plagues etc, causing the land to be arid, or die in other ways. The six inches of soil we rely on for all things carries an amazing depth and breath of organisms who are the most valuable and helpful to all species, just Class Arthropoda alone, is over 100 million to one of us yet their whole existence we cannot do without for a day as they are detritivores... I won't go on read the book.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    A must read!
  

*by J***Y on Reviewed in the United States on November 4, 2012*

Like most books of a commentary nature, Richard Manning spends most of these pages describing how agriculture changed the world, and not with the all too common culture hype. Did we live longer, enjoy life more and have free time as member of a hunting and gathering community? It seems so. Manning's thesis is that agriculture is and historically has been the recipe for most of the evils we now look elsewhere for the demons. The dinosaurs of the Industrial Age are everywhere, but firmly in control of agriculture, through massive government subsides. Processed "foods" made from corn, wheat, rice and sugar made from corn compose most of our American diets and make us FAT!There is however a deeper metaphysic in the book that should put it on everyone's reading list, and that is what really makes us human. "Against the Grain," gives us an insight into that history, not available elsewhere.

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*Product available on Desertcart Uruguay*
*Store origin: UY*
*Last updated: 2026-02-19*