The World's Greatest Fix: A History of Nitrogen and Agriculture tells the story of how humans have used their ingenuity throughout history to maintain soil fertility, and to avoid famine through productive agriculture. It starts with a layman's guide to the relevant chemistry of nitrogen and shows how the development of towns and fixed settlements meant that methods had to be found to maintain the fertility of fields exploited year after year. The way this was done, in purely empirical fashion, is described for the Chinese, the Incas, the Mayas, and the Romans. Author G. J. Leigh then examines the development of agriculture in England, including the use of field rotations. The gradual evolution of more sophisticated methods of land management is covered, emphasizing the use of fertilizers, the early development of chemistry with the realization of the modern concepts of elements and the contributions of plants and animals, and the establishment of agricultural science by Davy and Von Liebig. Leigh explains how we have arrived at our current understanding of biological nitrogen fixation through the efforts of generations of dedicated farmers and researchers. Later chapters deal with the birth of the nitrogen fixation industry and the political and economic consequences of it in Europe (First World War) and South America (guano and nitrate). The World's Greatest Fix shows how industrial fixation has developed from a laboratory process newly discovered at the beginning of the twentieth century into the impressive and sophisticated procedure in use today. Finally, the value of industrial nitrate to help feed the current world population and the environmental consequences of nitrate pollution in waters is discussed.

The turn of the millennium from the twentieth to the twenty-first century provides an occasion to review our understanding of a biological process, biological nitrogen fixation, that is of prime importance for the continued survival of mankind. This process has provided a basis for maintaining soil fertility since the beginning of organised agriculture, yet its very existence was confirmed only just over a century ago. In the intervening years, an enormous intellectual effort has dispersed much of the mystery surrounding biological nitrogen fixation. Biological fixation is widely exploited in agriculture, as are nitrogen fertilisers prepared for the last hundred years under extreme conditions of temperature and pressure. However, despite all our efforts, the fundamental nature of the reactions involved at the heart of the biological process remain unknown.

This book aims to describe what we have learned in the last one hundred years or so about biological nitrogen fixation, about what its chemistry appears to be, and how it is applied in agriculture. This ambitious objective has not been attempted recently. It is aimed at students and those who wish to enter these very challenging areas of research, and who need to learn the state of the art at the turn of the millennium.

The authors are all acknowledged world experts in their fields. They have prepared concise, well referenced and authoritative accounts of their subjects. This book provides a unique summary of the current state of knowledge that will be indispensable to all students and researchers, actual and potential, interested in biological nitrogen fixation.