| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 88.3

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 88.3 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

American Agriculture and the Problem of Monopoly: The Political Economy of Grain Belt Farming, 1953–1980. By Jon Lauck. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2000. xiv, 259 pp. $45.00, ISBN 0-8032-2932-1.)

Jon Lauck has taken on a difficult task in this book. He seeks to write an economic history of farming in America during the twentieth century that both explains the demise of the small independent farmer and advocates a revision of current antitrust treatment of farmer unions. I found the book a general failure to meet this task. The book fails for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the dense and rambling prose that makes the general argument extremely hard to follow. A second failure stems from Lauck's attempt to undertake economic analysis with an incomplete knowledge of the subject. The result is a very biased presentation of mainstream economic thought and a biased interpretation of the historical record. A final failing is in the level of evidence. The book seldom goes beyond simple quotations from various individuals. . . .

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