Locust: The Devastating Rise and Mysterious Disappearance of the Insect That Shaped the American Frontier Book + PRICE WATCH * Amazon pricing is not included in price watch

Locust: The Devastating Rise and Mysterious Disappearance of the Insect That Shaped the American Frontier Book

Imagine looking up to see an ominous black cloud on the horizon. Now imagine your growing horror as you watch that cloud reveal itself as an immense, miles-wide swarm of ravenous insects. In Locust, entomologist Jeffrey A. Lockwood reveals the bizarre history of a bug responsible for killing countless settlers on the American plains. First-hand accounts of the Rocky Mountain locust's horrific depredations are reproduced in the book, and Lockwood adds his own vivid reconstructions: We expect grasshoppers and locusts to consume our gardens and fields, but when these insects begin to feed on fabric and flesh something seems demonically amiss.... Although the settlers may have been astonished by the locusts' voracity, they were appalled by the insects' fierce cannibalism. Swarms of locusts would touch down like tornadoes on homesteads and farms, stripping away every growing thing and desperately eating other insects in search of much-needed fat and protein. These hordes were thought by many, including the Mormon settlers in Utah, to be divine punishments, or at least signs from above. After describing the effects this insect had on the American frontier, Lockwood delves into the entomologic mystery of the locusts' abrupt disappearance. Had they become extinct? Or gone into hiding in some ecological refuge? When Lockwood abandons history for science, his glee for his subject keeps the book moving, albeit slower than in the first few chapters. --Therese LittletonRead More

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  • Product Description

    In 1876, the U.S. Congress declared the locust "the single greatest impediment to the settlement of the country between Mississippi and the Rocky Mountains." Throughout the nineteenth century, swarms of locusts regularly swept across the American continent, turning noon into dusk, devastating farm communities, and bringing trains to a halt. The outbreaks subsided in the 1890s, and then, suddenly-and mysteriously-the Rocky Mountain locust vanished. A century later, entomologist Jeffrey Lockwood vowed to discover why.

    Locust is the story of how one insect shaped the history of the western United States. A compelling personal narrative drawing on historical accounts and modern science, this beautifully written book brings to life the cultural, economic, and political forces at work in America in the late nineteenth century, even as it solves one of the greatest extinction mysteries of our time.

    "Lockwood makes a compelling case that he has solved what he calls 'perhaps the greatest ecological mystery of modern times.' Along the way, he tells a tale of the Old West that few of us have heard before, and he tells it exceedingly well." (Los Angeles Times Book Review)

  • 0465041671
  • 9780465041671
  • Jeffrey A. Lockwood
  • 20 April 2005
  • Basic Books
  • Paperback (Book)
  • 320
  • New edition
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