## War, Peace, and Wheat (book review)

## Source details

**Canonical URL:** [War, Peace, and Wheat (book review)](https://www.imf.org/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2022/june/book-review.pdf)

## Other formats

- [Markdown version](/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2022/june/book-review.pdf.md)
- [Structured JSON version](/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2022/june/book-review.pdf.json)

---

### Overview
- Reviewed in June 2022 issue of Finance & Development.
- The review assesses Scott Reynolds Nelson’s Oce​ans of Grain: How American Wheat Remade the World.
- Book details: Basic Books, New York, NY, 2022, 368 pp., $18.99.

### Central thesis and scope
- Persuasive argument that wheat plays a key role in the rise and fall of empires.
- The narrative pivots back 12,000 years to the genesis of Europe’s breadbasket in what are now Ukraine and Russia.
- The book traces the ancient grain trade routes that later fed Europe’s cities and armies and follows wheat’s role through to the aftermath of Russia’s revolution (concluding “a century ago”).

### Historical and geopolitical themes
- War and hunger are key themes throughout Nelson’s history of how wheat feeds the world.
- Nelson’s first research visit to Odesa in 2011 is highlighted; the visit coincided with bread riots that sparked the Arab Spring.
- The review notes the book was published two days before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sent prices for the grain soaring to a record and stirred supply fears.
- The trade in wheat influenced the rise of Germany and Italy, the decline of Austria and Turkey, and Europe’s scramble for empire through the provision of inexpensive foreign grain.

### Economic and financial analysis
- The book is characterized as a financial history: it emphasizes international commodity markets increasingly bound together by wheat.
- Nelson traces the Panic of 1873 (noting on page 1 his obsession with it) as an agrarian crisis turned financial panic and economic slump stemming from falling food prices and outmoded financial tools.
- That crisis led to European bank failures, a Bank of England interest rate shock, and contagion reaching Wall Street.
- Quote from Nelson: “Oceans of grain had flooded Europe, and the flush times in Odessa and much of central Europe had ended, sending shockwaves around the world.”

### Technology, infrastructure, and trade impacts
- Storage and shipment developments are followed through Athens, Constantinople, Moscow, and the founding of Odesa, with links to quarantines, hamburgers, and commercial investment banking.
- Concentration of labor and capital in cities where food is cheap and ports are deep is emphasized.
- Immigration, industrialization, and urbanization follow wheat-driven cheap food: residents of London, Paris, and Amsterdam doubled in 1845–60.
- The United States’ rise in the 1860s is tied to wheat exports used to gain foreign exchange during the Civil War and to the Union Army’s need to feed soldiers and horses, which helped birth modern futures markets on the Chicago Board of Trade.
- Faster travel between ports—shortened by explosives used to deepen harbors and carve canals and railroads—helped end Russia’s sway over global grain by giving Europe’s cities cheaper food.
- U.S. shipments created a more global food market, with thousands of ships flooding Europe with grain and bearing millions of immigrants back across the Atlantic.

### Narrative strengths and tone
- The book is described as dense with history, politics, and economics yet light and engaging in style.
- Best passages are said to chronicle international commodity markets and their increasing integration through wheat.
- The narrative encourages readers “to think more like grain traders” and to view history through movements of food across oceans, rivers, and ports rather than solely as mapped nation-states.

### Notable dates and figures preserved from the review
- 12,000 years
- Odesa research visit: 2011
- Publication timing: published two days before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine
- Population doubling period: 1845–60
- U.S. rise linked to: the 1860s
- Panic of 1873 (obsession noted on page 1)
- Book concluding period: a century ago
- Book metadata: 368 pp., $18.99

*Review by Jeff Kearns, staff of Finance & Development.*

---


_Source: https://www.imf.org/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2022/june/book-review.pdf_