Locust: The devastating rise and mysterious disappearance of the insect that shaped the American frontier by Jeffrey A. Lockwood, Basic Books/Perseus, £14.99/$25, ISBN 0738208949
MUCH of Locust is not about the Rocky Mountain locust Melanoplus spretus itself, but about its impact on the history of the American west. Early settlers survived the “chill of hypothermia and the scourge of cholera” on their trek westward, then locusts brought poverty and starvation. They prayed and they waited, largely in vain, for help from state governments.
These victims were seen as foreigners and idle beggars, hardly citizens at all. Handouts would lead to…
