Tillage agriculture has led to widespread soil and ecosystem degradation globally, and more particularly in the developing regions. This is especially so in Africa where traditional agricultural practices have become unsustainable due to severe exploitation of natural resources with negative impacts on the environment and food system. In addition, agricultural land use in Africa today faces major challenges including increased costs, climate change and a need to transform to more sustainab...

“It is well that war is so terrible,” Robert E. Lee reportedly said, “or we would grow too fond of it.” The essays collected here make the case that we have grown too fond of it, and therefore we must make the war terrible again. Taking a “freakonomics” approach to Civil War studies, each contributor uses a seemingly unusual story, incident, or phenomenon to cast new light on the nature of the war itself. Collectively the essays remind us that war is always about damage, even at i...

This book explores the changes that are leading to a new century of natural resources management. It places the current situation in historical perspective, analyzes the forces that are propelling change, and describes and examines the specific changes in goals, policy, and practice that are transforming all aspects of natural resources management.The book is an important overview for wildlife biologists, foresters, and others working for public land agencies; professors and students of na...

**"This field guide is useful for trained ecologists, botanists, and naturalists, and is accessible to anyone else who wonders what is sprouting up from that sidewalk crack or in that corner of their suburban garden."**â• RhodoraIn this field guide to the future, esteemed Harvard University botanist Peter Del Tredici unveils the plants that will become even more dominant in urban environments under projected future environmental conditions. These plants are the most import...

Hunger is a daily reality for a billion people. More than six decades after the technological discoveries that led to the Green Revolution aimed at ending world hunger, regular food shortages, malnutrition, and poverty still plague vast swaths of the world. And with increasing food prices, climate change, resource inequality, and an ever-increasing global population, the future holds further challenges.In One Billion Hungry, Sir Gordon Conway, one of the world's fo...

"Ty Seidule scorches us with the truth and rivets us with his fierce sense of moral urgency." --Ron ChernowIn a forceful but humane narrative, former soldier and head of the West Point history department Ty Seidule's Robert E. Lee and Me challenges the myths and lies of the Confederate legacy—and explores why some of this country’s oldest wounds have never healed.Ty Seidule grew up revering Robert E. Lee. From his southern childhoo...

This report aims to provide a conceptual framework to address food security under conditions of water scarcity in agriculture. It has been prepared by a team of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in the framework of the project "Coping with water scarcity: the role of agriculture", and has been discussed at an Expert Consultation meeting organized in FAO, Rome in December 2009 on the same subject. It was subsequently edited and revised, taking account of disc...

A "well-reasoned and timely" ( Booklist) essay collection interrogates the Lost Cause myth in Civil War historiography.Was the Confederacy doomed from the start in its struggle against the superior might of the Union? Did its forces fight heroically against all odds for the cause of states' rights? In reality, these suggestions are an elaborate and intentional effort on the part of Southerners to rationalize the secession and the war itself. Unfortunately,...

This document presents a summary of the first Status of the World's Soil Resources report, the goal of which is to make clear the essential connections between human well-being and the soil. The report provides a benchmark against which our collective progress to conserve this essential resource can be measured. The report synthesizes the work of some 200 soil scientists from 60 countries. It provides a global perspective on the current state of the soil, its role in providing ecosystem se...

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • An "extraordinary ... profoundly moving" history (The New York Times Book Review) of the American Civil War that reveals the ways that death on such a scale changed not only individual lives but the life of the nation.An estiated 750,000 soldiers lost their lives in the American Civil War. An equivalent proportion of today's population would be seven and a half million. In This Republic of Suffering

The publication is intended to serve as a reference framework for Member States as they move forward to realize livestock's potentially major contribution to the Agenda 2030.For decades, the livestock debate has focused on how to increase production in a sustainable manner. However, the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development has shifted the emphasis from fostering sustainable production per se, to enhancing the contribution of the sector to the achievement of the Sustainable De...

The newly discovered slave narratives of John Washington and Wallace Turnage—and their harrowing and empowering journey to emancipation.Slave narratives, among the most powerful records of our past, are extremely rare, with only fifty-five surviving post-Civil War. This book is a major new addition to this imperative part of American history—the firsthand accounts of two slaves, John Washington and Wallace Turnage, who through a combination of int...