Locust: The Devastating Rise and Mysterious Disappearance of the Insect that Shaped the American FrontierThroughout the nineteenth century, swarms of locusts regularly swept across the continent, turning noon into dusk, demolishing farm communities, and bringing trains to a halt as the crushed bodies of insects greased the rails. In 1876, the U.S. Congress declared the locust "the single greatest impediment to the settlement of the country." From the Dakotas to Texas, from California to Iowa, the swarms pushed thousands of settlers to the brink of starvation, prompting the federal government to enlist some of the greatest scientific minds of the day and thereby jumpstarting the fledgling science of entomology. Over the next few decades, the Rocky Mountain locust suddenly -- and mysteriously -- vanished. A century later, Jeffrey Lockwood set out to discover why. Unconvinced by the reigning theories, he searched for new evidence in musty books, crumbling maps, and crevassed glaciers, eventually piecing together the elusive answer: A group of early settlers unwittingly destroyed the locust's sanctuaries just as the insect was experiencing a natural population crash. Drawing on historical accounts and modern science, Locust brings to life the cultural, economic, and political forces at work in America in the late-nineteenth century, even as it solves one of the greatest ecological mysteries of our time. |
From inside the book
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Page ii
... Report “This beautifully written book tells three stories: That of the American agricultural frontier and locust plagues; the growth of economic entomology and our understanding of the locust; and the riddle of the sudden extinction of ...
... Report “This beautifully written book tells three stories: That of the American agricultural frontier and locust plagues; the growth of economic entomology and our understanding of the locust; and the riddle of the sudden extinction of ...
Page xx
... reported in Manitoba in 1902 people wondered if another period of devastation was at hand. The specter of an outbreak loomed and there were still no reliable methods to defend the land. Nobody could have guessed that this would be the ...
... reported in Manitoba in 1902 people wondered if another period of devastation was at hand. The specter of an outbreak loomed and there were still no reliable methods to defend the land. Nobody could have guessed that this would be the ...
Page xxiii
... reports of the early geologists and the topographic filigree of modern maps. That is, if we could garner endorsements from increasingly dubious colleagues and eke out funding from correspondingly impatient sources. But I'd begun to ...
... reports of the early geologists and the topographic filigree of modern maps. That is, if we could garner endorsements from increasingly dubious colleagues and eke out funding from correspondingly impatient sources. But I'd begun to ...
Page 3
... reported skimming six bushels of locusts an hour from streams after swarms had settled on the region. Although there ... reports of turkeys, never considered the brightest animals, gorging themselves to death amid the morethan-you-can ...
... reported skimming six bushels of locusts an hour from streams after swarms had settled on the region. Although there ... reports of turkeys, never considered the brightest animals, gorging themselves to death amid the morethan-you-can ...
Page 5
... report with a plea for immediate action on the part of the government: Great suffering exists in all five of these extreme frontier counties to a fearful extent. The settlers are, in most instances, scattered over a large extent of ...
... report with a plea for immediate action on the part of the government: Great suffering exists in all five of these extreme frontier counties to a fearful extent. The settlers are, in most instances, scattered over a large extent of ...
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Locust: The Devastating Rise and Mysterious Disappearance of the Insect that ... Jeffrey A. Lockwood No preview available - 2005 |
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