Summary.
Explosive change typically brings huge opportunity. It can also bring unexpected danger for individual firms, entire industries, and even whole nations. A study published in the journal Agricultural History, titled “The Significance of Mr. Richard Buckley’s Exploding Trousers,” brings this point home dramatically. James Watson of Massey University in New Zealand examines what happened when New Zealand rapidly began importing and using agricultural chemicals in the 1930s. The chemicals worked as expected, and then some.