An Edible History of Humanity | tomstandage.com
▻http://tomstandage.wordpress.com/books/an-edible-history-of-humanity
There are many ways to look at the past: as a list of important dates, a conveyor belt of kings and queens, a series of rising and falling empires, or a narrative of political, philosophical or technological progress. This book looks at history in another way entirely: as a series of transformations caused, enabled or influenced by food. Throughout history, food has done more than simply provide sustenance. It has acted as a catalyst of social transformation, societal organisation, geopolitical competition, industrial development, military conflict and economic expansion. From prehistory to the present, the stories of these transformations form a narrative that encompasses the whole of human history.
Food’s first transformative role was as a foundation for entire civilizations. The adoption of agriculture made possible new settled lifestyles and set mankind on the path to the modern world. But the staple crops that supported the first civilizations — barley and wheat in the Near East, millet and rice in Asia and maize and potatoes in the Americas — were not simply discovered by chance. Instead, they emerged through a complex process of co-evolution, as desirable traits were selected and propagated by early farmers. These staple crops are, in effect, inventions: deliberately cultivated technologies that only exist as a result of human intervention. The story of the adoption of agriculture is the tale of how ancient genetic engineers developed powerful new tools that made civilization itself possible. In the process, mankind changed plants, and those plants in turn transformed mankind.
#préhistoire #histoire #alimentation #agriculture #organisation_sociale #livre cité par @nicolasm ici ▻http://seenthis.net/messages/240890#message241168