The Great Jerusalem Artichoke Circus: The Buying and Selling of the Rural American Dream

by Joseph A. Amato

In 1981, near the end of America's second post-World War II energy crisis, and at the onset of the nations most recent farm crisis, American Energy Farming Systems began to sell and distribute what it deemed a "providential plant" destined to be a new and saving crop--the Jerusalem Artichoke. This volume recounts this story of the bizarre intersection of evangelical Christianity, a mythical belief in the powers of a new crop, and the depression of the U.S. farm economy in the 1980s.

280 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1993

About the author

Joseph A. Amato was an American author and scholar. Amato was a history professor and university dean of local and regional history. He has written extensively on European intellectual and cultural history, and the history of Southwestern Minnesota. Since retiring, he has continued publishing history books, as well as five poetry collections and his first novel.

Reviews

[John Benson · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an older book that explores the case of the American Energy Farming System, a group that tried to sell American farmers in the Dakotas and SW Minnesota on planting Jerusalem Artichokes as a crop that could save their farms. Within two years, the company was bankrupt. Ten years later, Joseph Amato researches this case of greed by the instigators of this organization and what brought them down. He researches the story fully. The events took place in the early 198os at the beginning of the Reagan Era, but reading it during the first year of the Trump Era, you can see so many parallels between that time and now, with the role of free enterprise, the power of evangelical Christianity, and the role of greed in our culture.

[Kathleen Brandt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Much of this took place in the area where I grew up. In fact, some of the people mentioned in the book were neighbors while I was growing up. I was away from the area attending graduate school when this all happened, so while I heard some things about the Jerusalem artichoke debacle, I didn't know enough to really understand everything. This book was an eye-opener about how desperate people can find themselves conned by charismatic "snake-oil" salesmen (and women) and make things worse for themselves than before.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

Honestly not a bad book covering a weird moment in the 1980s.