Field Notes: Agricultural History’s New Plot

The last fifty years has witnessed the field of agricultural history undergoing a process of rejuvenation in which it has drawn closer to the cognate fields of environmental history and food history. The JIH has been instrumental in furthering this development. Its editors are to be saluted for the inspired idea to mount this retrospective/prospective initiative within the pages of its anniversary volume. Also worthy of a salute are the distinguished senior agricultural historians who helped to curtail American agricultural history’s relative decline in the second half of the twentieth century by welcoming talented young interlopers into the fold.