Rice: Global Networks and New Histories by ed. Francesca Bray, Peter A. Coclanis, Edda L. Fields-Black, and Dagmar Schäfer (review)

This ambitious volume examines the complex histories of rice in the early modern and modern periods. Rice is not only a plant but also a crop, a commodity, and a food, and the fifteen essays in the volume trace patterns of rice cultivation and consumption throughout much of the world. More specifically, the book explores what Francesca Bray calls the "local-global articulations" (4) of the political, economic, cultural, scientific, environmental, and biological forces that have shaped rice and its roles in society. This rich and wide-ranging analysis reflects the diverse scholarly backgrounds of the volume's contributors, whose areas of study range from East and Southeast Asia to Africa and the Americas.

In the introduction, Bray frames the varied histories of rice with two distinct historical debates. The first debate centers on the involution thesis in East and Southeast Asia, based on Clifford Geertz's pioneering study of colonial agriculture in Java (1963). Geertz argued that the technological and social attributes of wet-rice cultivation led to the intensification of production, mainly through increased labor, without leading to the transformation of the means of production or, by implication, to capitalist development. The second debate focuses on the "black rice" thesis in the Atlantic world. Proponents of this thesis, such as Judith Carney (2001), argue that enslaved Africans, especially women, brought their knowledge and skills of rice cultivation—not just their physical labor—from West Africa to the Americas and thereby contributed in a major way to rice production in the plantation economy and, by extension, to Atlantic capitalism. Bray adroitly juxtaposes these two debates to show that scholars of different regional histories have held divergent views on the relationship between rice and capitalism. She uses them in a valiant attempt to create coherence among the volume's very diverse chapters and, perhaps more importantly, to demonstrate the need for a comparative and global history of rice, a project to which this volume contributes substantially. Bray herself is a critic of the involution thesis (1986), and she stakes out a clear position on the historical significance of rice when she argues that rice "made crucial contributions … to the emergence of colonialism, industrial capitalism, and the modern world order" (35).

The fifteen chapters are divided into three sections, each with its own introduction. The first section, "Purity and Promiscuity," examines efforts to standardize rice or control its production and the environmental and cultural forces that hindered such efforts. These chapters provide ample reminder that rice, as a plant or a commodity, has never been homogeneous or unchanging. Individual farmers, commercial plant breeders, and scientists in places like Germany, Sierra Leone, Vietnam, and China all attempted to develop rice with genetic and physical characteristics to meet their particular desires. Those desires ranged from producing high yields to being adaptable to local ecological conditions, or even to producing grains of certain colors. Especially in the twentieth century, politicians and scientists championed programs of rice breeding in the service of broader economic, political, and diplomatic goals, such as ensuring national food supplies or combating poverty. But modernist designs on nature faced a range of obstacles. Local environmental conditions, insect pests, and adverse weather patterns diminished the success of such programs. In addition, consumer preferences for certain varieties and qualities of rice tended to undermine technocrats' focus on overall rice quantity.

The second section, "Environmental Matters," focuses on the environmental patterns of rice production in Africa, North America, and South Asia. At issue here is not just the historical distribution and spread of rice across continents but also the ecological and epidemiological ramifications of rice production. Just as rice became adapted to environments, so, too, were environments shaped by rice. In West Africa, farmers cultivated domesticated rices of African origin that were suited to different ecosystems, from mangrove swamps to dry uplands, and reshaped those ecosystems to...