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Rice Global Networks and New Histories Rice today is food to half the world’s population. Its history is inextricably entangled with the emergence of colonialism, the global networks of indus- trial capitalism, and the modern world economy. The history of rice is currently a vital and innovative field of research attracting serious attention, but no attempt has yet been made to write a history of rice and its place in the rise of capitalism from a global and comparative perspective. Rice is a first step toward such a history. The 15 chapters, written by specialists on Africa, the Americas, and several regions of Asia, are premised on the utility of a truly international approach to history. Each one brings a new approach that unsettles prevailing narratives and suggests new connections. Together they cast new light on the significant roles of rice as crop, food, and commodity, tracing how it shaped historical trajectories and interre- gional linkages in Africa, the Americas, Europe, and Asia. Francesca Bray is Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Edinburgh. She is the author of The Rice Economies: Technology and Development in Asian Societies (1994); Technology and Gender: Fabrics of Power in Late Imperial China (1997); Technology and Society in Ming China, 1368–1644 (2000); and Technology, Gender and History in Imperial China: Great Transformations Reconsidered (2013). Peter A. Coclanis is Albert R. Newsome Distinguished Professor of History and Director of the Global Research Institute at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is the author of The Shadow of a Dream: Economic Life and Death in the South Carolina Low Country, 1670–1920 (1989)andTime’s Arrow, Time’s Cycle: Globalization in Southeast Asia Over La Longue Durée (2006) and the coeditor of Environmental Change and Agricultural Sustainability in the Mekong Delta (2011). Edda L. Fields-Black is Associate Professor of History at Carnegie Mellon University. She is the author of Deep Roots: Rice Farmers in West Africa and the African Diaspora (2008). Dagmar Schäfer is Director of Department 3, Artefacts, Knowledge, and Action at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin, and Professor of Chinese Studies at the University of Manchester. She is the author of The Emperor’s Silk Clothes: State-Run Silk Manufacturing in the Ming Period, 1368–1644 (1998) and The Crafting of the 10,000 Things: Knowledge and Technology in 17th-Century China (2011) and coauthor of Weaving an Economic Pattern in Ming Times, 1368–1644 (2002). Rice Global Networks and New Histories Edited by FRANCESCA BRAY University of Edinburgh PETER A. COCLANIS University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill EDDA L. FIELDS-BLACK Carnegie Mellon University DAGMAR SCHÄFER Max Planck Institute for the History of Science 32 Avenue of the Americas, New York, ny 10013-2473, usa Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge. It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of education, learning, and research at the highest international levels of excellence. www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781107044395 © Cambridge University Press 2015 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2015 Printed in the United States of America A catalog record for this publication is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Rice (Cambridge University Press) Rice : global networks and new histories / [edited by] Francesca Bray, University of Edinburgh, Peter A. Coclanis, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Edda L. Fields-Black, Carnegie Mellon University, Dagmar Schäfer, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science pages cm ISBN 978-1-107-04439-5 (hardback) 1. Rice – History. I. Bray, Francesca, editor. II. Coclanis, Peter A., editor. III. Fields-Black, Edda L., editor. IV. Schäfer, Dagmar, editor. V. Title. SB191.R5R4434 2015 633.1′8–dc23 2014023784 ISBN 978-1-107-04439-5 Hardback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of urls for external or third-party Internet Web sites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such Web sites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. Contents List of Figures page vii List of Tables ix List of Contributors xi Foreword by Giorgio Riello xiii Acknowledgments xix Introduction: Global Networks and New Histories of Rice 1 Francesca Bray 1 part i: purity and promiscuity Introduction 37 Francesca Bray 1. Global Visions vs. Local Complexity: Experts Wrestle with the Problem of Development 41 Jonathan Harwood 2. Rice, Sugar, and Livestock in Java, 1820–1940: Geertz’s Agricultural Involution 50 Years On 56 Peter Boomgaard and Pieter M. Kroonenberg 3. A Desire to Eat Well: Rice and the Market in Eighteenth-Century China 84 Sui-Wai Cheung 4. Rice and Maritime Modernity: The Modern Chinese State and the South China Sea Rice Trade 99 Seung-Joon Lee 5. Promiscuous Transmission and Encapsulated Knowledge: A Material-Semiotic Approach to Modern Rice in the Mekong Delta 118 David Biggs v vi Contents 6. Red and White Rice in the Vicinity of Sierra Leone: Linked Histories of Slavery, Emancipation, and Seed Selection 138 Bruce L. Mouser, Edwin Nuijten, Florent Okry, and Paul Richards part ii: environmental matters Introduction 163 Edda L. Fields-Black 7. Rice and Rice Farmers in the Upper Guinea Coast and Environmental History 167 Edda L. Fields-Black 8. Reserving Water: Environmental and Technological Relationships with Colonial South Carolina Inland Rice Plantations 189 Hayden R. Smith 9. Asian Rice in Africa: Plant Genetics and Crop History 212 Erik Gilbert 10. When Jola Granaries Were Full 229 Olga F. Linares 11. Of Health and Harvests: Seasonal Mortality and Commercial Rice Cultivation in the Punjab and Bengal Regions of South Asia 245 Lauren Minsky part iii: power and control Introduction 275 Peter A. Coclanis 12. The Cultural Meaning of Work: The “Black Rice Debate” Reconsidered 279 Walter Hawthorne 13. White Rice: The Midwestern Origins of the Modern Rice Industry in the United States 291 Peter A. Coclanis 14. Rice and the Path of Economic Development in Japan 318 Penelope Francks 15. Commodities and Anti-Commodities: Rice on Sumatra 1915–1925 335 Harro Maat Bibliography 355 Index 399 Figures P.1 Overview maps: (a) Asia, (b) Europe and Africa, and (c) Africa and Americas page xxii 2.1 Distributions of percentage sawahs under sugar cane for the years 1880 and 1920 73 2.2 Relations between percentage sawahs under cane and population density for 1880 and 1920 75 2.3 Relations between percentage sawahs under sugar cane and sawah area per capita for 1880 and 1920 76 2.4 Relations between percentage sawahs under cane and rice yield per unit sawah for 1880 and 1920 77 2.5 Relations between percentage sawahs under cane and wet rice production per capita, 1880 and 1920 78 2.6 Relations between percentage sawahs under cane and arable land per capita for 1880 and 1920 79 2.7 Distribution of percentages of sugar cane sawahs per district for each Residency in 1920 80 2.8 Livestock per unit of arable land in 1880 and 1920 82 2.9 Relation between numbers of livestock in 1880 and 1920 at Residency level 82 3.1 Rice regions in China, ca. 1920–1950s 87 5.1 Hydro-ecological zones of the Mekong Delta 120 6.1 Phylogenetic relationships among 315 West African rice samples using UPGMA 154 6.2 Close-up of the phylogenetic relationships of the Japonica cluster and its subclusters 156 8.1 Scarps and terraces of the Lower Coastal Plain, central South Carolina 194 8.2 Charleywood Plantation with new rice fields 195 8.3 Windsor Plantation, with rice fields in division “A” and flanking canal wrapping around division “B” 205 vii viii List of figures 9.1 Population clusters identified by PCA in JMP Genomics software 221 10.1 Graph of 5-year running averages for four Lower Casamance stations 231 10.2 Location of our Jola study communities and the regions where they are found 233 11.1 Death rates during the 1908 Malaria epidemic in Punjab 253 11.2 Malaria distribution in Bengal 258 11.3 Seasonal mortality in the Punjab 272 13.1a Geographic distribution of pounds of rice produced in Southwestern states 1880–1900 294 13.1b Geographic distribution of pounds of rice produced in Southwestern states 1910–30 295 15.1 Map of a tobacco estate on Northeast Sumatra 341 Tables 2.1 The land, population, and rice-production characteristics of the sugar regions of Java in 1920 page 58 2.2 Production of kilocalories per capita per day for selected years, Java 67 2.3 Rice production per hectare (in kgs unhusked rice) for selected years 68 2.4 Correlations of percentage sawahs under cane with other variables 74 2.5 Correlations of the agricultural variables for districts 81 2.6 Correlations of livestock per unit of arable land with other variables at Residency level 83 6.1 Japonica rices at Mogbuama (Sierra Leone) in 1983 and 2007 158 13.1 Rice production in the United States, 1839–1919 (millions of pounds of clean rice) 299 13.2 Southwest Louisiana’s share of total rice production in Louisiana, 1879–1929 309 13.3 Mean yield of clean rice per acre, southwest Louisiana, 1879–1929 311 15.1 Origins of rice imports of the Netherlands Indies, in the mid-1910s 346 15.2 Rice imports of four major districts of Sumatra, in the mid-1990s 346 ix Contributors David Biggs Associate Professor, History, University of California- Riverside, USA Peter Boomgaard Professor, Environmental and Economic History, KITLV/ Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, Leiden, Netherlands Francesca Bray Professor, Social Anthropology, University of Edinburgh, UK Sui-Wai Cheung Associate Professor, History/Research Centre for Ming- Qing Studies, Chinese University of Hong Kong Peter A.