DownloadThe Portobello Bookshop Gift Guide 2024

Growing a Revolution

Bringing Our Soil Back to Life

David R Montgomery author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:WW Norton & Co

Published:21st Sep '18

Should be back in stock very soon

Growing a Revolution cover

Since the dawn of agriculture, great civilizations have sunk into poverty after destroying their once fertile land. Today, few people realise how close we are to the same fate if we don’t take action. In Growing a Revolution, David R. Montgomery leads us on a journey through history and around the world to see how innovative farmers ditch the plough, mulch cover crops and adopt complex rotations to restore the soil, finding the foundation for the next agricultural revolution: a soil health revolution.

Cutting through the debates about conventional versus organic agriculture, Montgomery shows how new regenerative methods heal damaged environments and improve farmers’ bottom lines. Ancient wisdom merges with modern science and Growing a Revolution shows how agriculture can help solve modern environmental woes.

"How can humanity feed its burgeoning billions when one-third of agricultural soil is degraded? Pondering that question propelled geologist David Montgomery on a three-decade, six-continent survey of farmland. The insights gleaned add nuance to his pointed critiques of agrotechnology and organic farming, but it's the findings on rapid soil restoration that compel." -- Nature
"Brilliant, well researched, eloquent, and deeply hopeful." -- Denis Hayes, founder of Earth Day
"David Montgomery... is one of our most eloquent and precise earth science communicators... [He] has a knack for opening our minds to large, critically important questions." -- New Scientist
"A wise and grounded book — restored soils are the solution." -- Jules N. Pretty, Professor of Environment and Society, University of Essex, UK
"Growing a Revolution presents a clear-eyed examination of a solution to the challenges we face in feeding the world. A joy to read with the bounce and flow of a great biography. I couldn’t recommend it more." -- Jerry Harrison, keyboardist and guitarist, Talking Heads
"Montgomery has written another classic. Growing a Revolution is one of the most important books ever written—an engaging and revealing service to human society and our planet." -- Amir Kassam, professor of agriculture, policy and development, University of Reading, UK
"This is a such an important book... thanks to those who told me to read it... Everyone interested in what we should eat and how we should farm should read it." -- James Rebanks

  • Short-listed for Stubbendieck Great Plains Distinguished Book Prize 2018

ISBN: 9780393356090

Dimensions: 211mm x 140mm x 20mm

Weight: 255g

320 pages