Wheat is the world’s most widely grown crop, covering 534 million acres in 2020, and responsible for nearly one in five food calories available globally (FAO 2021a; FAO 2021b). In Amber Waves, Catherine Zabinski explores how wheat has claimed this preeminent place in farmers’ fields and in our diets. A professor of plant and soil ecology, Zabinski’s gift as a science communicator shines throughout the book. Her story goes well beyond photosynthesis, plant physiology, and genetics, as she uses insights from archeology, anthropology, and politics to unravel the long, intertwining history of wheat and the human societies that have gathered, planted, harvested, and eaten wheat seeds for millennia. In this sense, the book really is a “biography” of wheat—Zabinski has succeeded in bringing out the crop’s wonderfully unique personality, the quirks of nature that have made it so appealing as a food crop, and the twists and...

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