MIT Seminar on Environmental and Agricultural History 

Shane Hamilton 
University of Georgia 
 

The American Supermarket and the Cold War “Farms Race” 


The supermarket was a key point of contestation in the Cold War era "farms 
race." From the late 1940s onward, the United States and the Soviet Union vied 
to demonstrate to the world that their contrasting approaches to industrial 
agriculture were better suited to providing consumers with food abundance. This 
"farms race" framed the efforts of key American policymakers and 
non-governmental organizations, such as Nelson A. Rockefeller's International 
Basic Economy Corporation, to export the American supermarket and its attendant 
system of capitalist industrial agriculture as a means of waging an economic 
and propaganda war against socialism. 

Friday, September 23, 2011 
2:30 to 4:30 pm 
Building E51 Room 095 
Corner of Wadsworth and Amherst Streets, Cambridge 

Sponsored by MIT’s History Faculty and the Program in Science, Technology, and 
Society. For more information or to be put on the mailing list contact 
[email protected]. 
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