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January 1980 Issue
January 1980 Cover
This magazine has been fully digitized as a part of The Atlantic's archive. Each article originally printed in this magazine is available here, complete and unedited from the historical print. Read more from this magazine, or explore the full archive.
  • Taiwan: An Unmarried Country
    Denis Warner
  • Bigger Than Politics
    Thomas Griffith
  • Why Almost Everyone Is Wrong About Gold
    Charles A. Cerami
  • Letter to a Dead Artist
    Frances Lindley
  • A Wig
    Bernard Malamud
  • Great Moments in American Journalism (Or, the Sorrows of Gin)
    Ward Just

The Ruination of the Tomato

It wasn’t a conspiracy, it was just good business sense—but why did modern agriculture have to take the taste away?

By Mark Kramer
January 1980 Issue

About the Author

Mark Kramer
Mark Kramer is the founder of the Nieman Program on Narrative Journalism and the Nieman Conference on Narrative Journalism, and the author of Three Farms, Invasive Procedures, and Travels With a Hungry Bear.

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