September 23, 2026
A book talk by Samantha Iyer
Associate Professor of history, Fordham University
The IIS Global History Seminar welcomes Dr. Samantha Iyer to discuss her newly published book Agrarian Superpower: Food, Development, and the Global Ascendancy of the United States. The talk discusses how the United States's status as a superpower in the mid-twentieth century was not only built on its industrial, financial, and military might but also something often seen as backward—agriculture. It focuses in particular on the changing relationship of the United States to Egypt and India, former British colonies that became two of the largest importers of U.S. food aid by the 1960s.
