The Food Explorer: The True Adventures of the Globe-Trotting Botanist Who Transformed What America Eats

Stone (editor, National Geographic) takes readers on a whirlwind tour of the life and agricultural successes of David Fairchild (1869–1954), a botanist whose collecting expeditions introduced avocados, Egyptian cotton, and dozens of other new foods to American farms in the first decades of the 20th century. Stone follows Fairchild's initial forays into plant collecting with a wealthy patron aboard luxury vessels as well as his career as a Washington bureaucrat heading the Office of Seed and Plant Introduction. Fairchild's extensive correspondence and published writing take center stage as Stone uses the sources to paint a vivid picture of a man with an insatiable curiosity and clear sense of purpose, traveling during a time when colonialism and nationalism created barriers to safe travel and effective cross-cultural communication. The narrative charts the rise and gradual fall of American interest in plant introduction, which eventually prompted Fairchild to leave public service in the years after World War I, and makes a convincing argument that his contributions to botany and agriculture were substantial and lasting.