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 xvii
... settlers in eastern Nebraska, could not fathom what he was seeing on that fateful day. He pulled on the reins of the plough horse, bringing the rig to a stop. The smell of fresh-cut grass perfumed the summer air. Setting the reins over ...
... settlers in eastern Nebraska, could not fathom what he was seeing on that fateful day. He pulled on the reins of the plough horse, bringing the rig to a stop. The smell of fresh-cut grass perfumed the summer air. Setting the reins over ...
Page xix
... settlers that Abram McNeal was surely overwhelmed—and perhaps for the first time in his life he despaired. Every Sunday, the scattered families in the valley made the bone-jarring trek over dirt roads to the Congregational church in ...
... settlers that Abram McNeal was surely overwhelmed—and perhaps for the first time in his life he despaired. Every Sunday, the scattered families in the valley made the bone-jarring trek over dirt roads to the Congregational church in ...
Page xxiv
... settlers, returning to the formative years of American entomology through the lives of its most influential practitioners, and searching for new evidence in icy graves and on musty bookshelves. For fifteen years I worked on this case ...
... settlers, returning to the formative years of American entomology through the lives of its most influential practitioners, and searching for new evidence in icy graves and on musty bookshelves. For fifteen years I worked on this case ...
Page 1
... in the Union Army contracted malaria and several thousand died. By the 1870s, the country had suffered the ravages of two of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse—war and disease. Although many of the settlers had evaded the devastation of.
... in the Union Army contracted malaria and several thousand died. By the 1870s, the country had suffered the ravages of two of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse—war and disease. Although many of the settlers had evaded the devastation of.
Page 2
... settlers had evaded the devastation of war, nearly all were agonizingly familiar with disease. Their journeys were shaped by the reality of pathogenic microbes and crippling parasites. Beating the other pioneers to an early start in the ...
... settlers had evaded the devastation of war, nearly all were agonizingly familiar with disease. Their journeys were shaped by the reality of pathogenic microbes and crippling parasites. Beating the other pioneers to an early start in the ...
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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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