"For over a century, California has been the world's most advanced agricultural zone, an agrarian juggernaut that not only out-produces every state in America, but also most countries. A full one-third of the food Americans eat is produced on a California farm. But California's success has come at significant cost. Never a family-farm region like the Midwest, California's landscape and Mediterranean climate have been manipulated and exploited to serve a modern business system. Home to gargantuan accomplishments, including the world's largest water storage and transfer network, California also relies on an army of Mexican farm laborers who live and work under dismal conditions." "In The Conquest of Bread, geographer Richard Walker offers a wide-angle overview of the agro-industrial system of production in California, from farm to table."--BOOK JACKET.