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One problem, two questions, three books about the vanishing diversity of cultivated plants

  • Book Review
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Abstract

The review deals with three books focused on two questions dealing with a single problem: how human cultures and crop cultures are interrelated? The two questions dealt with are: Is there a conflict between the evolution of cultivated plants and the present trend of our cultural (including social, economical, ideological or political) evolution? If yes, what can be done to diminish this conflict? The three books focused on these questions deal with (1) growing number of endangered crops on global scale (Khoshbakht and Hammer, Threatened Crop Species Diversity. Shahid Beheshti University Press, Teheran 2010), (2) massive erosion of locally and regionally important crop varieties and associated traditional knowledge followed by collapse of whole agroecosystems and landscapes on a country scale (Antofie, A red list of crop plant varieties for Romania—Lista rosie a varietatilor plantelor de cultura din Romania. Publ. House Lucian Blaga Univ., Sibiu 2011), and (3) the growing number of endangered human communities (ethnic, cultural and linguistic islands) which preserved for centuries many valuable genetic resources (Hammer et al. 2011).

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Notes

  1. The author consequently use the term “Central Part of Romania” and avoids using the toponym “Transylvania” for the zone of her case studies, perhaps to avoid the “Dracula Complex” associated with this name.

  2. We propose for the second edition of this book also an Index commonly accepted in our textbooks for centuries (cf. Melius 1578, 1978, l.c.).

References

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Szabó, A.T. One problem, two questions, three books about the vanishing diversity of cultivated plants. Genet Resour Crop Evol 60, 395–401 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10722-012-9927-2

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