Communist Pigs: An Animal History of East Germany's Rise and Fall - Couverture souple

Fleischman, Thomas

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 0295750693 ISBN 13 : 9780295750699

Editeur : University of Washington Press, 2022

Synopsis

The pig played a key role in the German Democratic Republic's attempts to create a modern, industrial food system built on communist principles. By the mid-1980s, East Germany produced more pork per capita than West Germany and the UK, while also suffering the unintended consequences of manure pollution, animal disease, and rolling food shortages. The pig is a highly adaptive animal, and Thomas Fleischman uncovers three types of pig that played roles in this history: the industrial pig, remade to suit the conditions of factory farming; the wild boar, whose overpopulation was a side effect of agricultural development; and the garden pig, reflective of the regime's growing acceptance of private farming within the planned economy. Fleischman chronicles East Germany's journey from family farms to factory farms, explaining how communist principles shaped the adoption of industrial agriculture practices. More broadly, Fleischman argues that agriculture under communism came to reflect the practices of capitalist agriculture, and that the pork industry provides a clear illustration of this convergence. His analysis sheds light on the causes of the country's environmental and political collapse in 1989 and offers a warning about the high cost of cheap food in the present and future. Communist Pigs was a finalist for the Turku Book Award, European Society for Environmental History.

A propos du livre

À propos des auteurs

Thomas Fleischman is assistant professor of history at the University of Rochester. This is his first book.

Paul Sutter is series editor for the Weyerhaeuser Environmental Books series. He is professor of history at the University of Colorado Boulder. He has published five books, including Driven Wild: How the Fight against Automobiles Launched the Modern Wilderness Movement (UWP, 2005) and Let Us Now Praise Famous Gullies: Providence Canyon and the Soils of the South (Georgia, 2015).

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: University of Washington Press
• Date d'édition: 2022
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 0295750693
• ISBN 13: 9780295750699
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 296
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: Mare Nostrum Group B.V.; gpsr@mare-nostrum.co.uk; ; Doelen 72; Breda; 4831 GR; Pays-Bas