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REVIEW: The Wizard and the Prophet, by Charles C. Mann

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The Wizard and the Prophet: Two Remarkable Scientists and Their Dueling Visions to Shape Tomorrow’s World, Charles C. Mann (Picador, 2018). There used to be famines. Poor harvests and crop failures have been with us since the development of agriculture: archaeological evidence makes it clear that farmers have always lived on the knife’s edge of subsistence, often hungry or malnourished, and from there it doesn’t take much to push them over the edge into famine. Too much rain or not enough, volcanic ash that chokes out the sunlight, diseases that affect the staple crops or the draft animals and peasants needed to bring them in from the fields, even wars that displace farmers and intentionally ravage agricultural land. If it’s just you and your neighbors, you can go where there’s food. If it’s just your province, you can import food from elsewhere. But really large-scale events (and/or really constrained trade networks) mean there’s nowhere to get food from, nor enough surplus to make it

REVIEW: The Wizard and the Prophet, by Charles C. Mann Jane Psmith Jan 22, 2024 109 44 16 Share The Wizard and the Prophet: Two Remarkable Scientists and Their Dueling Visions to Shape Tomorrow’s World , Charles C. Mann (Picador, 2018). There used to be famines. Poor harvests and crop failures have been with us since the development of agriculture: archaeological evidence makes it clear that farmers have always lived on the knife’s edge of subsistence , often hungry or malnourished, and from there it doesn’t take much to push them over the edge into famine. Too much rain or not enough, volcani

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