It was hard for me to believe how a book about soil erosion could be so fascinating. David Montgomery's Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations provides an historical survey of the role of soil erosion and depletion and the resulting impact on people. He provides a variety of examples from all over the world and from countries both big and small.

The first chapter of the book explains soil in great depth, starting with it's various layers, how it is formed, the role of earthworms and how soil becomes depleted.

The next chapters then start discussing how mankind caused soil erosion and soil depletion starting with the activities of the very first people who practiced agriculture. The book then discusses soil in early civilizations including Egypt, Mesopotamia, Rome, and China.

The next chapters then deal with the role of colonization and slavery contending that agriculture performed by people who are not directly connected to the land will be short-sighted and lead to more soil erosion. He also discusses regions where families had such small parcels of land that they could no longer practice the fallowing needed to restore the soil. As a result, the soil became less and less productive.

There are two chapters focused heavily on US agriculture leading up to the dust bowl. Most interesting, and surprising for me, was to learn that people like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were warning about the depletion of the soil in America. Later, in the 19th century, there were even more warnings about soil erosion and depletion. As part of this discussion, he talks about the very early pioneers of organic farming prior to WW II.

One of the cleverest chapters analyzes soil erosion and depletion in islands around the world ranging from Easter Island to Iceland to other Pacific islands as well as to Haiti and Cuba.

Reading the book is like drinking from a fire hose with so much interesting information presented in each chapter. Although this made the book exhausting to read, it turned it into a real page-turner.

The book is recommended to anyone interested in agriculture, environmental history, prehistory, or World history in general. ( )

Very informative but a bit of a slog and the author gets over-excited about organic farming. I understand it's an important issue but going into such a maniacal frenzy is not going to help convince anyone as much as figures or studies (which thankfully the author supplies some of). ( )

"Historians blame many culprits for the demise of once flourishing cultures: disease, deforestation, and climate change to name a few... Time and again, social and political conflicts undermined societies once there were more people to feed than the land could support. The history of dirt suggests that how people treat their soil can impose a life span on civilizations." (pg 3)

Add "soil abuse" to your list of societal ills that threaten civilization. David R. Montgomery has written a fascinating history of civilizations that have destroyed the soil they used to produce their food. From the ancient societies of the Middle East to Europe to South America to the American South and Midwest to islands in the South Pacific... it's a sobering history. It's also very detailed and comprehensive, and reminds me of more well-known books like [b:Guns, Germs, and Steel|1842|Guns, Germs, and Steel The Fates of Human Societies|Jared Diamond|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1453215833s/1842.jpg|2138852] and [b:1491|39020|1491 New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus|Charles C. Mann|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1545238592s/39020.jpg|38742] in how thoroughly it treats lengthy periods of history.

Soil is often seen erroneously as a commodity that cannot be used up. The problem is that the surface layer where food is able to grow takes a very long time to produce from weathering of rock below. When forest cover is removed and the ground is plowed, the soil is exposed to the elements and subject to erosion. When it is over-farmed for quick return "cash crops" and the nutrients are depleted, it no longer produces food. In the past, those societies either moved on to other farmable lands or died out. But occasionally societies developed methods of replenishing the nutrients and were able to last for 1,000 years or more on the same land.

This book has the feel of a textbook, but is still very readable and understandable rather than feeling dense. It's not for the home gardener who wishes to better care for the home soil, but rather a warning to societies and governments that there's a limit to our dirt.

"The underlying problem is confoundingly simple: agricultural methods that lose soil faster than it is replaced destroy societies." (pg 241-2) ( )

Interesting, but it bogged down when the author described one civilization after another doing the same or almost the same thing to their soil and paying the consequence. The entire middle portion of the book could have been summarized into one chapter. ( )

This is a truly dirty book - a book about dirt, in fact. This book traces the role that dirt, and the erosion of dirt (some of us would call it soil, but that would be pedantic) has played in the structure of our civilizations. A book that can teach a lot about a subject most people just sort of take for granted. ( )