Great Jerusalem Artichoke Circus

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.