Reveals how advertisers, editors, scientists, government agencies, and even Dr Seuss, colluded to convince farmers to use deadly chemicals, hormones, and genetically modified organisms (GMOs). This book utilizes advertisements and promotions to illustrate the story. It details how consumers and activists have struggled against toxic food.

"The War on Bugs" shouts that the time to stop poisoning our food, water, air, and ourselves is now!

PrefaceIntroduction1. The Roots of Farming in the Americas2. America's First Farm Revitalization Movement3. The Birth of the Rural Journals4. Guano and the Birth of the Rural-Industrial Mouthpiece5. Liebig and the Industrialists6. The Fertilizer Merchants7. The Medical Ancestry of Pesticides8. Ratcatchers, Quacks, and Early Pest Control in America9. The Populist Farmers' Movement10. Pain Pigments and Other Lethal Poisons11. Arsenic Regulation, the FDA, and Other Regulatory Hoaxes12. The First Advertised War on the Farms13. Populist Farmers, the Red Scare, and the Origin of the Modern Organic Movement14. Pesticide Spray Devices, Household Poisons, and Dr. Seuss15. Medical Heroes, War Heroes, and More Regulation Struggles16. The Pesticides of the 1930s17. Bombs and Fertilizers18. War Toys19. Animal Confinement and the Pharmaceutical Farm20. DDT and Other Second-Generation Pesticides under Attack21. Twenty-First-Century Populism: Organic Farming and the Anti-factory-farm movement22. Designer Genes: A Leap of Faith23. 160 Years of Poisonous Advertising24. Who Invited These Chemicals to Dinner? A Leap of HopeAppendix: Analysis of Pesticide Use on Certain Popular Crops from CaliforniaNotesBibliographyIndex