"There is an urgent need for books like [this]. Even as people are more attuned than ever before to the grim realities of a pandemic amidst the constant, rapid ricochet of human bodies around the planet, many remain unaware of the epidemics that rage among our most essential companion species--that is, among domesticated crops and livestock. It is possible that zoonotic diseases will garner greater attention thanks to desperate curiosity about the origins of SARS-CoV-2. Meanwhile, plant diseases will go on multiplying, with their sustained discussion unlikely outside agroindustry and agronomy. McCook's timely study makes clear the consequences of collective blindness to these ever-present epidemics in his globe-spanning, 150-year history of Hemileia vastatrix . That is the fungus responsible for coffee leaf rust, a disease for which there is no cure. The measures that have been, and still are being, taken to keep your morning coffee affordable and palatable in light of the rust might provide as much of a jolt as the java itself."--Helen Anne Curry, Environmental History.