THE history of agriculture is inextricably interwoven with the progress of civilization because it was the taking up of agriculture that made it possible. bleforprimitivemantoliveinselectedspots,fo,rmingasociety, andgrowing a significant portion of his food nearby. In developing crop and animal husbandry, man learned to supplement his own physical capability with that of domesticated animals. This enabled human beings to find a certain amount ofleisure to create the initial ingredients ofwhat is known as civiliza- tion. A thorough investigation of the history of agriculture is therefore a most important though difficult task to execute. While in some other parts of the world this has been attempted, no such endeavour has previously been made in respect of agriculture in the Indian subcontinent, the home of one of the greatest ancient civilizations. It is therefore gratifying that this has at last been done by Dr M. S. Randhawa with the support of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research. There could have been no better choice for the assignment.