Matthew Wills has advanced degrees in library science and film studies and is lapsed in both fields. He has published in Poetry, Huffington Post, and Nature Conservancy Magazine, among other places, and blogs regularly about urban natural history at matthewwills.com.
A history of civilization could be written in fertilizers. And the history of guano—bird poop—tells us a lot about slavery, imperialism, and U.S. expansion.
![Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Jean Blackwell Hutson Research and Reference Division, The New York Public Library. "Sugar cane plantation; [Jamaica.]" New York Public Library Digital Collections. Accessed April 27, 2016. http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47df-94a7-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99](https://daily.jstor.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Sugar_1050x700-600x400.jpg)
