| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 111.5

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 111.5 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Europe: Early Modern and Modern

Nikolai M. Dronin and Edward G. Bellinger. Climate Dependence and Food Problems in Russia 1900–1990: The Interaction of Climate and Agricultural Policy and Their Effect on Food Problems. Budapest and New York: Central European University Press. 2005. Pp. xvii, 366. $45.95.
Agriculture is tough in the Eurasian heartlands occupied by the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. This is why, although agriculture flourished early in much of Eurasia, it made little headway in the heartland until some 1,500 years ago, when a sustained migration of peasants from Eastern Europe laid the demographic foundations for the first powerful agrarian states in this region.	1
This book is a thorough and systematic attempt to assess the impact of climatic difficulties on Russian and Soviet agriculture since the late nineteenth century. It is written by two environmental historians, Nikolai M. Dronin and Edward G. Bellinger. Chapter one describes the general difficulties that an unpredictable climate posed for farmers in this region. Growing seasons were short, soils were poor in the forest zone, rainfall was erratic in the black earth zones, and difficulties in fodder production combined with the need to keep stock indoors during the long winters limited the possibilities for livestock farming. The climatic factors that most directly determined output were variable rainfall and regular droughts. These go a long way to explaining the "great fluctuation in yields" (p. 4). The authors conclude that "During the last hundred years the country went through at least 30 years of severe drought" (p. 335). Throughout this period, agricultural output correlated closely with rainfall levels (pp. 7–8).	. . .

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