Sea of Grass: The Conquest, Ruin, and Redemption of Nature on the American Prairie

Other than some interesting history about American agriculture, there is not much new in this book if you are actively involved in land management. The book revisits the Gulf dead zone and its causes for example, but offers little in the way of solutions other than cutting back on agricultural chemicals. The section on ranching contains the same tired narrative about eating less beef while worshiping the bison. There is almost no discussion on the new regenerative ideas in management of both crop and pasture based farming operations that has become a ground swell in the U.S. overall, this book misses the target while pushing an agenda that is often misguided.

A fascinating crash course on the biological, economic, and cultural history of America’s grasslands and the growing efforts to protect what’s left of these remarkable ecosystems.

Review of “Sea of Grass” is a bit difficult, as the book provides an excellent documentation of a very real problems but then struggles some with objectivity. The book highlights the negative impacts of intensive corn-soybean cultivation throughout the Midwest and less convincingly of grazing systems further west. The criticisms of these human impacts from agriculture come across as a bit gratuitous in not recognizing human impacts on the East Coast and other areas of human habitation. This is despite a clear attempt to balance the perspectives of those dependent on agriculture with its detractors. Various issues - some are minor – suggest a lack of balance in the way they are treated. Aren’t seeds dispersed in cattle droppings, as in buffalo? How different is methane production from cattle versus wild ruminants? Buffalo are called ‘priceless’ despite many examples cited of actual prices for buffalo. European displacement of native people may be rightly criticized as colonization, but displacement of one group of native people by another is treated as a normal process. There is little discussion of pre-European human impacts on the grasslands – perhaps these were limited but the large Cahokia city must have had impact. The book is an important read but should be approached critically, as the authors may be taking the very real chemical runoff problems of the Corn-Soybean Belt and trying to generalize too far.

"If a place isn't worth a vacation, is it worth protecting?"To know something is to understand it, and with understanding, can come love and protection. For many Americans, the North American prairie is an oft out-of-sight, out-of-mind backdrop - a checkbox on a middle-grade geography test, a painted backdrop in a history lesson, and a wide, flat, and likely boring stretch of a trip to more exciting and exotic places by and or by air. Though the American prairie often takes on a mythical, aloof, barren, and somewhat despairing backdrop for TV dramas and old-time cowboy shows, it - like the universe - contains multitudes, providing a dazzling and dramatic backdrop for endless cycles of new birth, rebirth and reincarnation for untold numbers of living creatures that call the great grass seas home.Though strangers from strange lands found this walkable sea to be unforgiving and ungovernable when they arrived over two centuries ago, human innovation in the form of the steel plow, artificial drainage, and nitrogen fertilizers sparked a revolution that would change the land and its people (both its native inhabitants and its foreign colonizers) forever. With great change, unfortunately, comes the opportunity for great calamity, which the farmers, consumers, and inhabitants of this landscape in modern times are experiencing first-hand as the balance of the prairie tips toward insurmountable ecological disaster.Part epic history, part ecological exploration, and part call to arms, "Sea of Grass" draws readers to the unsung wilderness of a faraway sea - one of a biological diversity that would put a tropical rainforest to shame, and from which great transformation - and both boundless success and unfathomable loss - has been unearthed.I adored this book, and highly recommend the audiobook while taking a walk through whatever kids of nature you have available to you. I definitely learned a lot about American prairie land that I had no knowledge of before - and that's as someone who likes to regularly read books about nature, ecology, and plant/animal/life science. I also really loved how the historical exploration of the prairie blended seamlessly into a bigger discussion around colonialism, resource exploitation, science in the name of "progress", and current affairs.I think this book was a great call-to-arms that also explored on a more approachable level the way that these greater players - 200 years of history, a ecological cataclysm, and endless miles of "unused" land - affect individuals, families, communities, and cities on an intimate level. Readers interested in finding something to believe in and love about American in a time where that is increasingly hard, and who wish to learn more about the ways in which people are fighting back against the loss of an irreplaceable ecosystem (and potentially what they can do to help) should pick up this masterpiece!

The authors took a daunting topic and made incredibly interesting with their approachable story-telling technique. They could have made this work a dry, lecturing treatise but turned it into an engaging and fascinating read. I couldn't wait to move from one topic to the next. I've spent my entire life in the heartland and I learned so much about farming practices and their impacts on our environment in ways I've never understood before. I am grateful for the education this book provided to me.