Oceans of Grain: How American Grain Changed the World

“Oceans of Grain. How American Grain Changed the World” is a book published on February 22, 2022, that describes the rivalry of world empires in controlling the production and sale of grain over several centuries. The book has been reviewed by the BBC, CBC, The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, and The New York Review of Books

This book begins in Odessa — or rather, the port of Odessa. It ends there. The book tells the story of the global political process, economic development and urbanization, the Industrial Revolution, and wars in Europe and the United States in the context of control over grain production and grain export routes. This is a rather unusual view of the problem, because such history is not taught in school.

At school, we are told about battles, but we never delve into the question of how it happened that the soldiers of one of the armies were hungry. We study the biographies of outstanding commanders, but we know little about those who supplied horses with thousands of tons of oats, built railways, and tried corrupt officials and looters under martial law.

Now we know what the security and stability of grain corridors are and how famine affects the political balance. This book will reveal to you the history of how the disruption of food supply channels led to political conflicts and wars.

Yes, nothing has changed. For centuries, the seizure of grain-producing lands and export-import routes led to dire consequences for countries and peoples. All this is directly related to Ukrainian black earths and seaports.

Everyone here — Chumaks, ancient Greeks, Ottomans, Poles, Jews, British, Americans, French, Germans, Russian imperialists, and Ukrainian peasants. Everything is here — the Bosphorus and Dardanelles, the plague, the "potato famine", "bread riots", the Crimean and Balkan wars, the French revolutions, the abolition of slavery and the Civil War in the USA, the Russo-Japanese War, the First World War, the Russian communists and the independent Ukrainian state.

All great wars have always been wars for bread. The Russian war against Ukraine is no exception. This is a fascinating book about the history of Odessa and the role of agrarian business in world history.

You will look at history and the ongoing war differently after this book