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Mohrbooks Literary Agency
Sebastian Ritscher |
SEA OF GRASS
The Conquest, Ruin, and Redemption of Nature on the American Prairie
The American Prairie rivals the tropical rainforest in its biological diversity and is disappearing even faster.
SEA OF GRASS is an historical look at the prairie and an urgent call to better understand this natural wonder and to learn to pay attention and prioritize saving it.
SEA OF GRASS is an historical look at the prairie and an urgent call to better understand this natural wonder and to learn to pay attention and prioritize saving it.
When Euro-Americans encountered the prairie nearly 200 years ago, rather than seeing the land as a natural wonder, to their minds they found challenging, root-tangled soil. But, with the development of the steel plow, drainage technology, and introduction of nitrogen fertilizers, they set about turning the prairie into some of the most productive farmland on earth--one of the most remarkable and complete ecological transformations in history--feeding the industrial revolution well beyond cities near the plains.
This transformation, though, came at a cost in the forced dislocation of Indigenous people, the pollution of waterways, depletion of soil nutrients, and the catastrophic loss of insect, animal, and plant species, all building to a point of crisis for the environment and American food systems. Today, American farmers face an impossible dilemma. Urgent action is needed to restore the soil and the region's biodiversity. At the same time, any deviation from generations of agricultural practice are too risky in a business with razor-thin margins, where one bad year could mean the loss of the family enterprise. Whether it's the threat of climate change, the devastating and dangerous pollution of the Mississippi River and Gulf of Mexico, or the loss of pollinator species, American grasslands face urgent challenges that will require the buy-in of US farmers to meet.
Dave Hage oversaw environmental and health reporting at the Minneapolis Star Tribune for a dozen years, editing projects that won a Pulitzer Prize, an Edward R. Murrow Award, and other national journalism honors. His previous books include No Retreat, No Surrender: Labor's War at Hormel and Reforming Welfare by Rewarding Work. He is a Minneapolis native whose parents grew up in the small prairie towns of western Minnesota. He lives in St. Paul with his wife, a florist and master naturalist.
Josephine Marcotty is an award-winning environmental journalist who has spent her life in the Midwest of the U.S. She was a reporter for the Star Tribune in Minneapolis where she chose to cover complex, science-based topics critical to the community, including economics, healthcare, and the environment. SEA OF GRASS is a natural expansion of the in-depth reporting she did for the newspaper on the vanishing prairie, the importance of natural landscapes, and the consequences of intensive agriculture.
These veteran journalists follow the history of humanity's relationship with this incredible land, and SEA OF GRASS offers a deep, compassionate analysis of the critical, difficult decisions as well as opportunities facing agricultural and Indigenous communities and an incredibly vivid portrait of one of the world's most significant ecosystems, making clear why the choices made are of essential concern far beyond America's heartland.
This transformation, though, came at a cost in the forced dislocation of Indigenous people, the pollution of waterways, depletion of soil nutrients, and the catastrophic loss of insect, animal, and plant species, all building to a point of crisis for the environment and American food systems. Today, American farmers face an impossible dilemma. Urgent action is needed to restore the soil and the region's biodiversity. At the same time, any deviation from generations of agricultural practice are too risky in a business with razor-thin margins, where one bad year could mean the loss of the family enterprise. Whether it's the threat of climate change, the devastating and dangerous pollution of the Mississippi River and Gulf of Mexico, or the loss of pollinator species, American grasslands face urgent challenges that will require the buy-in of US farmers to meet.
Dave Hage oversaw environmental and health reporting at the Minneapolis Star Tribune for a dozen years, editing projects that won a Pulitzer Prize, an Edward R. Murrow Award, and other national journalism honors. His previous books include No Retreat, No Surrender: Labor's War at Hormel and Reforming Welfare by Rewarding Work. He is a Minneapolis native whose parents grew up in the small prairie towns of western Minnesota. He lives in St. Paul with his wife, a florist and master naturalist.
Josephine Marcotty is an award-winning environmental journalist who has spent her life in the Midwest of the U.S. She was a reporter for the Star Tribune in Minneapolis where she chose to cover complex, science-based topics critical to the community, including economics, healthcare, and the environment. SEA OF GRASS is a natural expansion of the in-depth reporting she did for the newspaper on the vanishing prairie, the importance of natural landscapes, and the consequences of intensive agriculture.
These veteran journalists follow the history of humanity's relationship with this incredible land, and SEA OF GRASS offers a deep, compassionate analysis of the critical, difficult decisions as well as opportunities facing agricultural and Indigenous communities and an incredibly vivid portrait of one of the world's most significant ecosystems, making clear why the choices made are of essential concern far beyond America's heartland.
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Book
Published 2025-05-27 by Random House |