Much of the early part of the book is given over to exploring the international roots of Midwestern agriculture. What does it mean, in terms of what the Midwest truly is historically and today, that such a key industry that plays such a large role in shaping how we see the region is actually deeply tied to the international community?
For different audiences, it may mean different things. There are many people in the United States who have no idea how globally-minded agricultural producers have been. They don’t know how important the search for export markets has been historically, and the other forms of connections that have stitched rural places to wider fabrics. I’m thinking of things like immigration streams, military service, missionary efforts. For people who are familiar with the desire for things like export markets, some of what I write about will be familiar.
But even for the people who live in the rural Midwest, I think there are many parts of their own history that have been lost or forgotten or are not present in textbooks that my book addresses, so in that sense it’s revelatory to readers in places such as the rural Midwest as well as outside readers. The book tells tales that historians have not focused on.
I knew nothing about a lot of these international connections, even though I grew up in the area. Even with narratives about, for example, migrant farm workers — I’ve heard a little about them through word-of-mouth, and yet I don’t think of the Midwest or specifically Illinois when I think about that kind of movement of peoples and labor.
One thing that really blew me away was that some migrant farm workers who were coming from Mexico to the rural Midwest had ancestors from the rural Midwest who were forced out in the early 20th century. So in that sense, people who are sometimes denounced in political discourse as alien others who should be walled out of the United States are actually struggling for a right of return.
Along with those international connections, your book also teases out the region’s relationship to empire.
One of the things that jumps out for the time period I write about — the ‘long 19th century’ — you can’t write about connections across borders in that period without looking at empire. It was a time dominated by European empires, with upstart empires outside of Europe — including the United States and Japan — participating in global networks that were characterized by hierarchies of power. [This becomes] very visible when you’re tracking things like animal imports. The example that makes that quite clear is that of the Berkshire hog. It was very popular in the late 19th century, and came to the United States from Britain. But the genetic material the British farmers used to develop this incredible pork producer was carried to Britain on shipping routes of the British empire, and ultimately many of the pork products made from this animal ended up advancing British colonialism in places like Australia and New Zealand or by feeding the British military. So from the production and the consumption side of the story, empire features prominently