Slash-and-burn agriculture is a sequence of interactions between farmers and ecosystems, which includes forest, cropping, fallow, and cropping after fallow. In sampling across this sequence in Pucallpa, Peru, 235 plant species were recorded in the forest, of which 143 were not found in any successive land use. However, plants not occurring in the forest colonized fields and fallow. In total, 59...

In his classic book, Structure and Change in Economic History, Douglass North sums up the nature of the ancient Egyptian state. As religious ruler, the pharaoh was the ultimate owner of land, which was controlled mainly by temples and state officials. But when the Romans conquered Egypt in 30 BC, agrarian property rights were at a turning point. Private landowners became politically dominant an...

Dr B. R. Ambedkar, one of the makers Indian Constitution, is known best as emancipator untouchables. Ambedkar’s effort to make India a nation through ‘breaking internal differences’ much debated and not widely recognized he has still been confined only his identity ‘liberating leader Dalits’. ideas—caste annihilation, securing rights depressed class, representation oppressed in political affair...

Peanut and corn are two major crops in the tri-state area of the southeast USA, an area encompassing north Florida, southwest Georgia, and southeast Alabama. Sharecroppers in this region apply higher amount of input in crop production than the average farmers. We analyzed the behavior of sharecroppers in this region with regard to their fertilizer application decisions. Two hypotheses were form...