James C. Mccann

Biography

"Professor McCann is author of Stirring the Pot: A History of African Cuisine (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2009); Maize and Grace: Africa’s Encounter with a New Crop, 1500–2000 (Harvard University Press, 2005); Green Land, Brown Land, Black Land: An Environmental History of Africa (1999); People of the Plow: An Agricultural History of Ethiopia, 1800–1990 (1995); and From Poverty to Famine in Northeast Ethiopia, 1900–1935 (1987) as well as a number of articles, book chapters, and reviews on topics in the history of Ethiopia and Africa. He is the recipient of the 2006 George Perkins Marsh Prize, American Society for Environmental History, and also Honorable Mention 2006 Melville J. Herskovitz Award, African Studies Association. His research has been supported by Fulbright-Hays, the Social Science Research Council, the Ford Foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. He has been a fellow-in-residence at the National Humanities Center (1991–92) and the Program in Agrarian Studies at Yale University (1998–99). Professor McCann has conducted field research in Ethiopia, Sudan, Uganda, South Africa, and Lesotho and has twice been invited for testimony by committees of the United States Congress. He has also served as a consultant to Oxfam America, the United Nations Environmental Program, the United Nations Development Program, the Carter Center, Norwegian Redd Barna (Save the Children), American Jewish World Service, and the International Livestock Centre for Africa."

Research Interest

African history, environmental history, agricultural history, health and agro-ecological change