A book exploring the origin of the farm tractor back in 2022 is getting widespread attention with the national release of a PBS documentary. Neil Dahlstrom, Monmouth College alum and author of Tractor Wars, says working with PBS to bring his book to life was a lifelong dream of his.
“As I was writing the book, just looking at photos and films, you start to see things in moving pictures. So when [PBS] talked about the documentary, I was really excited. So, I worked with them on that process,” says Dahlstrom. “It’s amazing writing a book and producing a documentary for TV– the process is very similar, and it really hit home for me. I was having a conversation, and they said, ‘Well, our rough cut was two and a half hours long, and we had to get it down to 55 minutes’ and I said, ‘Well, I had one day where I cut 100 pages out of the book, so I understand what you’re saying’. It’s really hard to fit it into a space and tell a compelling narrative because you only think about the things you left out.”
The PBS documentary was released on Iowa PBS in 2024 before being released to almost 200 public stations nationally in 2025. Tractor Wars, the book, was released in 2022, with a paperback version available May 17th.
