The Soil We Eat *

Is Killing Us (And May Cause Societies to Collapse)

* Remember Richard Manning’s influential 2004 Harper’s essay The Oil We Eat ? I do.

Why did the Roman Empire collapse again? Wasn’t it something about the barbarian hordes? Or the rise of Christianity and the inevitable eclipse of the decadent pagans? Wait…maybe it was the lead in the pipes beneath the Palatine Hill?

Here’s another hypothesis: the Empr…