Farm : A Year in the Life of an American Farmer (New ed)

'Rhodes brings empathy and intelligence to his subject, and he projects for the reader that continuing identification with the day-to-day complexities, disappointments, and gratifications encountered by the Bauers...[His] chronicle is unvarnished, his vision acute' - Maxine Kumin, "New York Times Book Review". 'I have never read a better description of what it's like to live and work on a Midwestern farm' - "Christian Science Monitor".

Richly textured and deeply moving, "Farm" chronicles a year in the life of Tom and Sally Bauer of Crevecoeur County, Missouri, who cultivate nearly two square miles of the surface of the earth.

They struggle to build up their farm, harvesting corn, birthing calves, planting wheat, coping with the vagaries of nature and government regulations.

Required of them are ancient skills (an attunement to the weather, animals, crops, and land) as well as a mastery of modern technology, from high-tech machinery to genetics and sophisticated chemicals.'Reading about the Bauers makes one better appreciate the role the farm has played, and still plays, in the shaping of our national character' - "National Review". Richard Rhodes spent nearly a year on the Bauers' farm, observing the duties and drama of the changing seasons.

He is the author of "The Making of the Atomic Bomb", which won the Pulitzer Prize for history in 1988 and, most recently, of "Deadly Feasts: Tracking the Secrets of a Terrifying New Plague".