Jo Handelsman’s text A world without soil: The past, present, and precarious future of the earth beneath our feet outlines the threats to global soil health from a scientific perspective and provides an empirical foundation for many in the social sciences or humanities who advocate for more just and sustainable food systems. While soil is often cited as important in these circles, why that is, and how exactly it functions is not as widely understood. Handelsman’s effort to provide an accessible book to non-soil science specialists is admirable, although not without weaknesses worth addressing.

Dans son ouvrage A world without soil: The past present and precarious future of the earth beneath our feet, Jo Handelsman décrit, d’un point de vue scientifique, les menaces qui pèsent sur la santé des sols de notre planète. Il fournit une base empirique aux spécialistes des sciences sociales ou humaines qui plaident en faveur de systèmes alimentaires plus justes et plus durables. Si le sol est souvent donné comme important dans ces cercles, la raison de son importance et son fonctionnement exact ne sont pas si bien compris. L’effort de Handelsman pour fournir un livre accessible aux non-spécialistes de la science du sol est admirable, même s’il n’est pas exempt de faiblesses qui méritent d’être abordées.

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

• Bloomfield, R. S., (2025), "A world without soil: The past, present, and precarious future of the earth beneath our feet", HSSCommons: (DOI: 10.15353/cfs-rcea.v10i2.644)

  Copy Citation | Export metadata as... | JSON | CSV | RO-Crate | BibTex | EndNote

1. Agricultural Biodiversity Agroecology
2. Agriculture in Canada
3. agri-food policy
4. soil

Original publication: Bloomfield, Richard S. "A world without soil: The past, present, and precarious future of the earth beneath our feet." Canadian Food Studies / La Revue canadienne des études sur l'alimentation, vol. 10, no. 2, 2023, pp. 123-125. DOI: 10.15353/cfs-rcea.v10i2.644. This material has been re-published in an unmodified form on the Canadian HSS Commons with the permission of Canadian Food Studies / La Revue canadienne des études sur l'alimentation. Copyright © the author(s). Work published in CFS/RCÉA prior to and including Vol. 8, No. 3 (2021) is licensed under the Creative Commons CC BY license. Work published in Vol. 8, No. 4 (2021) and after is licensed under the Creative Commons CC BY-SA license. For details, see creativecommons.org/licenses/.