I’ve been interested in the work of Raoul Robinson since hearing about it from this community. I found a trio of his books online for a decent price, and I couldn’t resist placing an order.
It probably won’t happen until this winter, but I’m planning to make my way through these books and post small reports here.
Return to Resistance seems to be his most popular work, which explains his understanding of horizontal genetic resistance as the key to addressing pests and disease.
I’ve read a good amount of Crop Histories online, it’s fascinating and I’m not sure why it hasn’t had a wider audience. Raoul presents a broad history of human development of agriculture, from initial domestication to ongoing selection of food crops. His individual crop profiles are very interesting, focusing on the major 3 global grain crops (wheat, maize, rice), as well as other staple and useful crops.
Self-Organizing Agro-Ecosystems might have some content of particular interest to this community. It seems to be a synthesis of his previous work, plus a new argument that local networks of amateur plant breeders are the way to eliminate the use of insecticides and fungicides globally.