“Rather than frame industrial waste as an economic externality, this history of capitalism illustrates how industrial byproducts led to entirely new agricultural applications.” Tad Brown, reviewed in Agricultural History

“Adam Romero offers readers the opportunity for a dramatic paradigm shift in regard to the growth of industrial agriculture from the nineteenth into the twentieth century… Rethinking the spread of economic poisons also forces readers to grapple with a common observation about American agriculture whose meaning has often been ignored. Although most histories of agriculture and the development of pesticides include some acknowledgment that abundance was the sector’s most persistent and serious economic problem, few scholars address the implications of this truism. If abundance was so harmful, why do many accept at face value the idea that pesticide use was motivated by the desire to increase output? Romero’s thesis provides an explanation for this contradiction.” Michelle Mart, reviewed in California History

“There are more original insights in this short, well-written volume than can be mentioned in this brief review. Economic Poisoning is an important book that should have wide readership in the fields of environmental and agricultural history.” William Kerrigan, reviewed in the Journal of American History

"In this fantastic book, Adam Romero reveals stories about pesticides never told before, most notably the profound imbrication of industrial waste production and chemicals that could kill anything that interfered with crops. At a time when closed-loop material ecologies are an environmental aspiration, Romero challenges us to rethink this received wisdom."—Julie Guthman, author of Wilted: Pathogens, Chemicals, and the Fragile Future of the Strawberry Industry

"This book brilliantly illuminates the synergies between the production of industrial waste and the industrialization of agriculture in a way no other has. In Romero's telling, America's agricultural landscape was never a manifestation of Thomas Jefferson's agrarian dream but a toxic sump."—Linda Nash, author of Inescapable Ecologies: A History of Environment, Disease, and Knowledge