StudentShare
Contact Us
Sign In / Sign Up for FREE
Search
Go to advanced search...
Free

McCann, Maize and Grace - Book Report/Review Example

Cite this document
Summary
McCann, Maize and Grace One of the most notable works on the social history of maize in Africa, James McCann’s Maize and Grace: Africa’s Encounter with a New World Crop, 1500-2000 deals with how maize has become the continent’s most important source of food as a result of the intolerant environment and rapidly changing weather patterns in the continent…
Download full paper File format: .doc, available for editing
GRAB THE BEST PAPER95.9% of users find it useful
McCann, Maize and Grace
Read Text Preview

Extract of sample "McCann, Maize and Grace"

McCann, Maize and Grace One of the most notable works on the social history of maize in Africa, James McCann’s Maize and Grace: Africa’s Encounter with a New World Crop, 1500-2000 deals with how maize has become the continent’s most important source of food as a result of the intolerant environment and rapidly changing weather patterns in the continent. Significantly, McCann makes a profound exploration of the history of maize in Africa, and the various chapters of the book deals with studies of particular regions or topics relating to the general history of maize in Africa.

Introduced sometime around 1500 A.D. as a seed imported from the New World, maize has become the most important crop and food grain of the region. It is important to recognize that Africa’s experience with maize, although distinctive to the continent, is also instructive from a global perspective, because it is predicted to be the world’s most cultivated crop by 2020. “Whereas much of the world requires maize as a livestock and chickenfeed… Africa’s demand is primarily for maize as food for humans.

This particular situation of Africa by comparison with other world areas sets the continent’s romance with maize apart.” (McCann, 2005, P. xii) Therefore, it is evident that McCann’s work, instead of systematically analyzing the entire maize commodity system in Africa, is concerned with various themes, problems, and processes which illuminate the outstanding African encounter with a New World crop over a period of time. This paper makes a comprehensive review of McCann’s Maize and Grace in order to analyze the major argument of the author in the book, its strengths and weaknesses, the use of different sources to effectively convey the main points, etc.

McCann’s Maize and Grace has been widely regarded as one of the central contributions to an understanding of the social history of maize in Africa and the author’s major argument is presented with reference to the history of maize in Africa. McCann begins his book with a discussion of the biology of maize and how it fits into African climates and ecologies. According to the author, “the story of African maize tells us a great deal about the continent’s distinctive physical and cultural environments, as well as the many ways Africa has contributed to the global (and globalized) phenomenon of maize.

” (McCann, 2005, P. 11) In the second chapter of the book, “Naming the Stranger: Maize’s Journey to Africa”, McCann investigates the linguistic evidence from the diverse range of African names for maize, whereas the next chapter (“Maize’s Invention in West Africa”) deals with how maize’s arrival in the region became a defining event in the historical perspective. The role of the political economy of peasant farming in the cultivation of maize in Venice’s Po Valley region and the Ethiopian highlands is analyzed in the chapter “Seeds of Subversion in Two Peasant Empires”.

The influence of industrialization and mining on the large-scale cultivation of maize during the late 18th and early 19th century is taken up in the chapter “How Africa’s Maize Turned White”, while the next chapter “African Maize, American Rust” deals with a fungus detected in Sierra Leone in late 1949. The chapter “Breeding SR-52: the Politics of Science and Race in Southern Africa” discusses about the development of the SR-52 maize hybrid in 1960 and the next chapter, “Maize and Malaria”, explores links between maize and malaria, focusing on the Ethiopian area of Burie.

In the final chapter, “Maize as Metonym in Africa’s New Millennium”, McCann is concerned with the future of maize in Africa: “By the year 2020… world demand for maize will surpass he need for both rice and wheat… For Africa, where humans eat more than three-quarters of the maize produced… the annual demand for maize will virtually double, to 52 million tons.” (McCann, 2005, P. 197) In a profound analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the arguments made by the author, it becomes lucid that McCann is highly effective in convincing the readers about the general history of maize in Africa as well as its nature and future.

The author efficiently takes the reader to a captivating tour of five centuries of African history relating to maize and its effect is mainly academic more than the popular. In short, it is a highly productive work for students of African agriculture as well as general readers who are fascinated about the social history of maize in Africa. Bibliography McCann, James. 2005. Maize and Grace: Africa’s Encounter with A New World Crop, 1500-2000. Harvard: Harvard University Press. P. 11.

Read More
Cite this document
  • APA
  • MLA
  • CHICAGO
(“McCann, Maize and Grace Book Report/Review Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words”, n.d.)
Retrieved from https://studentshare.org/other/1414044-mccann-maize-and-grace
(McCann, Maize and Grace Book Report/Review Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 Words)
https://studentshare.org/other/1414044-mccann-maize-and-grace.
“McCann, Maize and Grace Book Report/Review Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 Words”, n.d. https://studentshare.org/other/1414044-mccann-maize-and-grace.
  • Cited: 0 times

CHECK THESE SAMPLES OF McCann, Maize and Grace

MPTP and Its Role in Toxic Parkinsonism

Mohammed Ali, Pope John Paul II, Michael J.... Fox.... These three men who are known and respected in the fields of boxing, religion and show business, respectively seem to have nothing in common.... To the common people, they seem to be worlds apart in their way of life, from their beliefs to their everyday dealings, yet, all of them share a common ground: Parkinson's Disease. … Parkinson's Disease (PD) is a "progressive neurodegenerative disorder, which is globally distributed, affecting all cultures and races" (European Parkinson's Disease Association)....
4 Pages (1000 words) Essay

Management Skills and Organisation

The report "Management Skills and Organisation" presents the author's reflection on social barriers to learning, evaluating management, and organization of the process.... nbsp;Learning is a process starting practically from one's day of birth.... The first steps in learning begin by making use of the senses....
8 Pages (2000 words) Report

Metropolis by Fritz Langs

Based on a script written by his wife, Thea von Harbou and himself, the film looks almost exactly a century ahead and projects their vision… The theme centers around what a Megapolis of sixty million people will look like and whether the extant class divides would have faded away.... However, it takes an unusual turn, in that it brings an android or robot to life as a vamp, a pseudo-whore who is a replica The film assumes that artificial life creatures will be more female oriented than male and that technology will wrap itself around this premise....
7 Pages (1750 words) Essay

Incarceration in the United States of America

Incarceration ideally is perceived as a social control and deterrent of crimes by rehabilitating jailed persons imprisoned either due to commission of criminal and unlawful civil acts.... But empirical evidences points that incarceration has conversely resulted to doubling of crime… This essay will therefore describe statistical updates of mass incarceration in America, explicate causes of this phenomenon, its effects to community, significance of race and gender in criminal justice There is increasing number of persons in the penal colony of United States which is surprisingly seven times higher compared to Western Europe and most of whom came from vulnerable and disadvantaged members of the communities (Western & Loury, 2011)....
6 Pages (1500 words) Term Paper

The Rubbish Duck Project

From the paper "The Rubbish Duck Project" it is clear that the highly independent contemporary society, that we live in today, faces a range of grave challenges.... These include the polarization and inequality of market structures both - within and beyond the nations.... hellip; The incessant publicity and constant media tactics that promoted the product as pristine and compared it with the "pristine mountain streams of Poland Springs" (Louaillier, 2010) prevented the consumers from acknowledging and considering the harmful negative consequences of the same on their health as well as on the environment....
7 Pages (1750 words) Essay

An Imbalance in Accumulation and Ablation

This paper ''The Gravity'' tells that Gravity, along with the friction resulting from an imbalance in accumulation and ablation, causes ice flow.... Since the conflict occurs more between the lower layers of ice and the bedrock, the flow of ice is highest at the glacier's walls and floor.... hellip; The glacier is wholly deprived of sunlight during summer when the neighboring mountains block the sunlight....
7 Pages (1750 words) Report

Somalia: a Study in Chaos and Hope

The essay "Somalia: a Study in Chaos and Hope" discusses how the resources to achieve modernization were certainly there but a lack of foresight; the least concern for the people or some more sinister sentiments to cripple the nations led to Africa being deprived of all the developments of the modern era....
7 Pages (1750 words) Essay

Preventing Learners from Realising their Educational Potential

The researcher of the current paper highlights that the fulfillment of academic or educational potential continues drawing attention, being an under-developed arena of inquiry as it relates to the explanation of social influences on academic outcomes.... nbsp;… A discussion of the influences of social factors to the presence or lack of realization of educational potential is necessary for the understanding of why educational set up and potential are un-even in contemporary society....
11 Pages (2750 words) Coursework
sponsored ads
We use cookies to create the best experience for you. Keep on browsing if you are OK with that, or find out how to manage cookies.
Contact Us