Maize and Grace: Africa's Encounter with a New World Crop, 1500-2000 (review)

With a captivating title, Maize and Grace, James McCann considers the ambiguities of African development through a handful of creatively researched maize stories that demonstrate his well-honed investigatory and interpretative skills as a distinguished Africanist environmental historian. From an informed use of oral tradition, little-used agronomic research records, statistical analysis, and artistic and photographic evidence—shared through almost forty illustrations—McCann reveals how an environmental history of maize in Africa illustrates both the triumphs and tripwires of development science and politics.

The richly documented stories of maize as both blessing and misfortune might encourage a healthy measure of historically grounded humility among current "neo-green revolutionary" campaigns. But the central theme of Maize and Grace suggests otherwise. Contemporary and high-profile maize research and extension embody the modern agricultural strategy of transforming rather than adapting to the environment and thereby write one more chapter in the historical evolution of maize from local variation, adaptation, and flexibility to homogenization.

This defining feature in the history of maize in Africa—the trend from local variation to homogenization—did not just happen by accident. As McCann argues in his examination of the "world ecology of maize" and the complex, coevolutionary relationships of people and maize, plant breeding embodies political as well as agronomic choices; only some of these express the preferences of small farmers. This political theme is woven throughout the stories and offers a significant opportunity for the application of historical analysis to contemporary development initiatives. For example, since seed saving has historically been an important farmer-centered strategy adapted to specific local conditions, McCann justifiably asks whether the well-funded public and corporate initiatives to replace popular varieties of Quality Protein Maize by hybrids that farmers will not be able to save and share represent "a sustainable change or a temporary blip" (5).

The fascinating historical geography of maize provided in chapter 2 includes an imaginative description of the ways in which "local aesthetic expression" and wonderfully diverse place-based names of maize were replaced by the numbers and initials of trials and research stations. Continuing his skillful use of oral tradition, McCann uses the stories of maize among the Asante and the Yoruba to illustrate the twin themes of "the agroecology of West African political history" and "the Africanization of maize" that occurred first in West Africa (43). Both chapters 2 and 3 contribute to the building of a historically grounded West African political ecology and to critical analyses of the relationships among development and biodiversity.

The comparative historical ecology of maize in northern Italy and in Ethiopia further broadens our perspective by showing how maize "throws into sharp relief some fundamental historical truths about the social and economic change in agrarian systems" (61). Documenting the spread of maize in northern Italy offers clear evidence of insights made possible by blending solid historiography with an appreciation of agronomic and farming systems knowledge. Similarly, McCann's now well-known story of maize and malaria later in the book testifies to both excellent historical detective skills and to the analytical contribution of a truly multidisciplinary team that encouraged sensitivity to the unintended consequences of economic development and environmental change, as well as the effects of new diseases.

Based on a solid understanding of the historical political ecology of maize, McCann explores the international political economy of maize through three interrelated themes. Looking at "how Africa's maize turned white" allows him to examine the political economy of maize and the process of industrialization (especially mining). The "now obscure episode" of the rapid spread of American rust throughout Africa in the early 1950s offers an opportunity for him to consider the "nature of science, political ecology, and the globalization of power" (121). Finally, the story of SR-52 in southern Africa returns to the politics of agronomic research with a refreshing and cautious perspective on the ways in...