Table of Contents

People and Plants: two hundred millennia of coevolution
1: Early human societies and their plants
2: Plant management and agriculture
3: How some people became farmers
Crops and their Genetics: 90 million years of evolution
4: Plant genomes
5: Fluid genomes, uncertain species, and the genetics of crop domestication
6: The domestication of cereal crops
7: The domestication of non-cereal crops
People, Plants, and Farming in Prehistoric Times: ten millennia of climatic and social change
8: People and the emergence of crops
9: Agriculture: a mixed blessing
10: Evolution of agro-urban cultures I: the Near East
11: Evolution of agro-urban cultures II: East and South Asia
12: Evolution of agro-urban cultures III: Africa, Europe and the Americas
People and Plants in Historic Times: globalisation of agriculture and the rise of science
13: Crop management in the Classical and Medieval Periods
14: Agricultural improvement and the rise of crop breeding
15: Imperial Botany and the early scientific breeders
16: Agricultural Improvement in modern times
17: The future of agriculture and humanity

About the Author

Denis J Murphy is Professor of Biotechnology and Head of the Biotechnology Unit at the University of Glamorgan in Wales, UK, and also works as a government advisor in the areas of agriculture and biotechnology in the UK and overseas. He has broad interests in research and education, including running a schools outreach programme, and frequently participates in public debates on scientific issues ranging from stem cells & cloning to GM crops &
organic farming.

Reviews

...this book can safely be recommended as much more than just an up-to-date introduction to a topic fundamental to understanding humanity's past and critical to our species'continued survival. June 2008, Antiquity, Vol. 82, No 316.