In the past 75 years agricultural economics as a professional field has evolved from a relatively small and fragmented group of concerns into a large professional activity, with highly developed theory, sophisticated research techniques, much data, and many outputs. Agricultural economists have developed, during the same time and as part of the same process, from a small number of pioneers, often shrewd and hardheaded men, but typically not well-trained by today's standards, into a large, well-populated, well-trained profession with many subfields. Agricultural economists today have permeated many aspects of modern American life—fact of which we boast, and one which some of our critics may deplore. How this came about, and what our role is or might be today, are the subjects of this paper.
The Presence of the Past: Popular Uses of History in American Life