Agriculture
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Abstract
For the student of cultural history, one of the most interesting phases of the world's postwar concern for economically undeveloped areas is certainly the diffusion of ideas of economic growth to these regions. The volume before us is a case in point. Innocenzo Gasparini, instructor at the University of Sassari in Sardinia and for some time concerned with Sardinia agricultural problems, came to America on a Rockefeller grant to study the theory of economic growth and from the vantage point of Stanford University to investigate the agricultural success of California. The published result of his experience is, as we would expect, a combination of growth theory and of Californian agricultural history. Both are excellent syntheses of their subjects. In general, the author follows Joseph Schumpeter's theory of growth as formulated in his publication of 1911. On the demand side, his interest is in the changing consumption patterns of the population and in the dynamics of production costs, technological advance, entrepreneurial leadership, investments, and effects of one stage of development upon the next. Using the Californian case as his exhibit of what is possible, the author shows that there is considerable elasticity in agricultural production and what can be done to augment it. He candidly indicates throughout that he has in the back of his mind what steps must be taken to effect growth in the agriculture of Sardinia and of Italy's Mezzogiorno. This work is one of which both Italian and American scholarship can be proud. It is marked by one minor flaw, which is so usual that especial mention of it should be made, lack of careful proofreading of English words and names. SHEPARD B. CLOUGH, Columbia University