In , acclaimed historian Richard A. Walker offers a wide-angle overview of the agro-industrial system of production in California from farm to table. He lays bare the long evolution of each link in the food chain, showing how a persistent emphasis on productivity and growth allowed California to outpace agriculture elsewhere in the United States. Full of thunder and surprises, allows the reader to weigh the claims of both boosters and critics in the debate over the most extraordinary agricultural profusion in the modern world.