ABSTRACT
Economists were perplexed by the world depression of the 1930's and S. V. Ciriacy-Wantrup enjoyed the intellectual challenge of debates about trends whose results remained problematic. The Giannini Foundation had built a solid reputation in its field of agricultural economics. In 1932, the University of Bonn, in Germany, granted Wantrup a doctorate in economics. Respected economists devalued the role of natural resources in economic development and agreed that technological innovation and trade would eliminate concerns over scarcity. Changes in departmental curricula vindicated Wantrup's conviction that sensible study of the economics of agriculture should entail an understanding of its natural resource base and the policies through which this base is made available for use. Wantrup's radical views were, it now seems, not openly acceptable during much of the 1950s and '60s, and thus were particularly objectionable to those economists who sought personal advancement through the uneasy service of developmental interests.
