An Edible History of Humanity (27 page)

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

As books about food go, this is an unusual one because it says very little about the taste of food or the joy of eating. Given
my focus on the “nonfood” uses of food, the reader might easily conclude that I am only concerned with food’s anthropological
or geopolitical significance, and that I am not terribly interested in cooking or eating. Nothing could be further from the
truth; and appropriately enough many of the people who helped me while I was writing this book did so over a meal. Toby Mundy
of Atlantic Books crystallized my thoughts and proposed the title over lunch in Soho. George Gibson of Walker & Company embraced
the idea over afternoon tea. I had constructive discussions with James Crabtree over sushi, Andreas Kluth over lunch at Zuni
in San Francisco, Sarah Murray over coffee and cakes, and Paul Abra-hams over lunch at the Garrick Club. Oliver Morton and
Nancy Hynes helped me shape my ideas over several home-cooked meals.

NOTES

PART I

The account of the origins and domestication of maize follows Fussell,
The Story of Corn;
Warman,
Corn and Capitalism;
and Doebley, “The Genetics of Maize Evolution.” The discussion of the domestication of rice and wheat, and of domestication
more widely, follows Diamond, “Evolution, Consequences and Future of Plant and Animal Domestication”; Cowan and Watson,
The Origins of Agriculture;
and Needham and Bray,
Science and Civilisation in China.
For food-related creation myths, see Gray,
The Mythology of All Races,
and Visser, Much Depends on Dinner. The impact of farming on human health is discussed in Cohen, Health and the Rise of Civilization,
and Manning, Against the Grain. The nature and impact of the spread of agriculture in Europe is discussed in Pinhasi, Fort,
and Am-merman, “Tracing the Origin and Spread of Agriculture in Europe,” and Dupanloup, Bertorelle, Chikhi, and Barbujani,
“Estimating the Impact of Prehistoric Admixture on the Genome of Europeans.”

PART II

The social structure of hunter-gatherer bands is discussed in Sahlins,
Stone Age Economics,
and Lee,
The !Kung San.
The transition from egalitarian hunter-gatherers to settled and socially stratified city-dwellers is discussed in Bellwood,
First Farmers;
Bender, “Gatherer-Hunter to Farmer: A Social Perspective”; Gilman, “The Development of Social Stratification in Bronze Age
Europe”; Wenke,
Patterns in Prehistory;
Hayden,
Archaeology;
and Johnson and Earle,
The Evolution of Human Societies.
The account of Inca fertility rituals follows Bauer, “Legitimization of the State in Inca Myth and Ritual.” A masterful comparative
account of the emergence and structure of the earliest civilizations is provided by Trigger,
UnderstandingEarly Civilizations.

PART III

For spice-related myths, see Dalby,
Dangerous Tastes.
The origins and history of the spice trade are discussed by Dalby,
Food in the Ancient World from A to Z;
Schivelbusch,
Tastes of Paradise;
Keay,
The Spice Route;
Turner,
Spice;
and Miller,
The Spice Trade of the Roman Empire.
For the relationship between spices and trade, see Curtin,
Cross-Cultural Trade in World History.
For the roles of spices in spreading and supposedly warding off the Black Death, see Ziegler,
The Black Death;
Deaux,
The Black Death, 1347;
and Herlihy,
The Black Death and the Transformation of the West.
The fall of Constantinople is discussed in Crowley,
Constantinople.
Voyages of Columbus and Vasco da Gama are described in Fernández-Armesto,
Columbus;
Subrahmanyam,
The Career and Legend of Vasco da Gama;
Keay,
The Spice Route;
Turner,
Spice;
and Boorstin,
The Discoverers.
The impact of Vasco da Gama (and Zheng He) on Eu ro pe an spice prices is discussed in O’Rourke and Williamson, “Did Vasco
da Gama Matter for Europe an Markets?” The structure of Indian Ocean trade is described in Chaudhuri,
Trade and Civilisation in the Indian Ocean.
The origins of Europe an empires are discussed in Scammell,
The World Encompassed.
The local-food debate is examined in Murray,
Moveable Feasts,
and by innumerable bloggers online.

PART IV

The story of King Charles’s pineapple follows Beauman,
The Pineapple.
European nations’ competition in economic botany, and the origins of botanical gardens, are discussed in Brockway,
Science and Colonial Expansion,
and Drayton,
Nature’s Government.
The transfer of maize and potatoes to the Old World are discussed in Ho, “The Introduction of American Food Plants into China”;
Langer, “Eu rope’s Initial Population Explosion”; and Langer, “American Foods and Eu rope’s Population Growth 1750–1850.”
The account of transfer of sugar to the New World, and the proto-industrial nature of sugar production, follows Landes,
The Wealth and Poverty of Nations;
Mintz,
Sweetness and Power;
Hobhouse,
Seeds of Change;
Daniels and Daniels, “The Origin of the Sugarcane Roller Mill”; Higman, “The Sugar Revolution”; and Fogel,
Without Consent or Contract.
The history and impact of the potato are discussed in Salaman,
The History and Social Influence of the Potato;
Reader,
Propitious Esculent;
and McNeill, “How the Potato Changed the World’s History.” The discussion of the role of new foodstuffs and agricultural techniques
in triggering the Industrial Revolution draws upon Malanima, “Energy Crisis and Growth 1650–1850”; Thomas,
The Industrial Revolution and the Atlantic Economy;
Pomeranz,
The Great Divergence;
Thomas, “Escaping from Constraints: The Industrial Revolution in a Malthusian Context”; Steinberg, “An Ecological Perspective
on the Origins of Industrialization”; Wrigley,
Poverty, Progress and Population;
Wrigley,
Continuity, Chance and Change;
Jones, “Agricultural Origins of Industry”; and Jones, “Environment, Agriculture, and Industrialization in Europe.” The account
of the potato famine follows Reader,
Propitious Esculent,
and Hobhouse,
Seeds of Change.

PART V

Military logistics in the ancient world are discussed by Engels,
Alexander the Great and the Logistics of the Macedonian Army;
Roth,
The Logistics of the Roman Army at War;
Clausen, “The Scorched Earth Policy, Ancient and Modern”; and Erdkamp,
Hunger and the Sword.
The role of logistics in the Revolutionary War is discussed by Tokar, “Logistics and the British Defeat in the Revolutionary
War,” and Bowler,
Logistics and the Failure of the British Army in America.
For a broad overview of the evolution of military logistics, see van Creveld,
Supplying War,
and Lynn,
Feeding Mars.
The account of Napoleon’s rise and fall follows Rothenberg,
The Art of Warfare in the Age of Napoleon;
Nafziger,
Napoleon’s Invasion of Russia;
Asprey,
The Rise and Fall of Napoleon Bonaparte;
Schom,
Napoleon Bonaparte;
and Riehn, 1812:
Napoleon’s Russian Campaign.
The role of logistics in the Civil War is discussed in Moore, “Mobility and Strategy in the Civil War.” The account of the
development of canned food follows Shephard,
Pickled, Potted and Canned.
The account of the Soviet famine of 1932–33 follows Ellman, “The Role of Leadership Perceptions and of Intent in the Soviet
Famine of 1931– 1934”; Ellman, “Stalin and the Soviet Famine of 1932–33 Revisited”; and Dalrymple, “The Soviet Famine of 1932–1934.”
The great Chinese famine is discussed in Smil, “China’s Great Famine: 40 Years Later,” and Becker,
Hungry Ghosts.
The role of food shortages in the collapse of the Soviet Union is described in Gaidar,
Collapse of an Empire.
For an account of the sugar boycott see Wroe, “Sick with Excess of Sweetness.”

PART VI

The account of the development of the Haber-Bosch process follows Smil,
Enriching the Earth;
Erisman, Sutton, Galloway, Klimont, and Winiwarter, “How a Century of Ammonia Synthesis Changed the World”; and Smil, “Nitrogen
and Food Production: Proteins for Human Diets.” The green revolution and its impact are discussed in Evans,
Feeding the Ten Billion;
Easterbrook, “Forgotten Benefactor of Humanity”; Evenson and Gollin, “Assessing the Impact of the Green Revolution, 1960
to 2000”; Webb, “More Food, But Not Yet Enough”; and Stuertz, “Green Giant.” The relationship between agricultural productivity
and economic development is discussed in Gulati, Fan, and Dalafi, “The Dragon and the Elephant: Agricultural and Rural Reforms
in China and India”; Timmer, “Agriculture and Pro-Poor Growth: An Asian Perspective”; Delgado, Hopkins, and Kelly, “Agricultural
Growth Linkages in Sub-Saharan Africa”; Fan, Hazell, and Thorat, “Government Spending, Growth, and Poverty: An Analysis of
Interlinkages in Rural India”; Gollin, Parente, and Rogerson, “The Food Problem and the Evolution of International Income
Levels”; Gollin, Parente, and Rogerson, “The Role of Agriculture in Development”; and Doepke, “Growth Takeoffs.” Demographic
transition is discussed in Doepke, “Accounting for Fertility Decline During the Transition to Growth.” The relationship between
nitrogen inputs and yields, and the scope for a switch to less chemical-intensive farming, is discussed in Smil,
Enriching the Earth.

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