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An Edible History Of Humanity
''An Edible History of Humanity'' is a book written by Tom Standage that encompasses the history of the world from prehistory to modern day times through the tracing of foods and agricultural techniques used by man. Overview Standage's book is divided into 6 major sections starting in prehistoric times and advancing up to present day. The six sections are: :1: Edible Foundations of Civilization (Neolithic Revolution transforms hunter-gatherers to agriculturalists.) :2: Food And Social Structure (Food as wealth: sedentary societies that store food create inequalities in wealth and power.) :3: Global Highways of Food (Luxury goods such as spices motivate a quest for wealth via exploration and colonization) :4: Food, Energy, And Industrialization (New World crops and fossil fuels expand agricultural productivity and non-farm occupations leading to Industrial Revolution, but monoculture leads to famine.) :5: Food As A Weapon (Military and political leaders benefit from power over f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tom Standage
Tom Standage (born 1969) is a British journalist, author, and editorial executive currently working as the Deputy Editor of ''The Economist'' newspaper under editor-in-chief, Zanny Minton Beddoes. As head of the newspaper's digital strategy, Standage is the editor-in-chief of the website of ''The Economist'', its applications and digital platform. He first joined the paper in 1998 as a science correspondent and was successively appointed technology editor, business editor, and finally, digital editor. Born and raised in England, Standage graduated from Oxford University with a degree in engineering and computing. He began his career in journalism as a science and technology writer for ''The Guardian'' and ''The Daily Telegraph'' where he was deputy editor of the technology supplement, ''Connected''. Standage is the author of six books including ''The Victorian Internet'' (1998), ''A History of the World in 6 Glasses'' (2005), and ''Writing on the Wall'' (2013). Early life and c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maize
Maize ( ; ''Zea mays'' subsp. ''mays'', from es, maíz after tnq, mahiz), also known as corn (North American and Australian English), is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 10,000 years ago. The leafy stalk of the plant produces pollen inflorescences (or "tassels") and separate ovuliferous inflorescences called ears that when fertilized yield kernels or seeds, which are fruits. The term ''maize'' is preferred in formal, scientific, and international usage as a common name because it refers specifically to this one grain, unlike ''corn'', which has a complex variety of meanings that vary by context and geographic region. Maize has become a staple food in many parts of the world, with the total production of maize surpassing that of wheat or rice. In addition to being consumed directly by humans (often in the form of masa), maize is also used for corn ethanol, animal feed and other maize products, such as corn starch and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Social Structure
In the social sciences, social structure is the aggregate of patterned social arrangements in society that are both emergent from and determinant of the actions of individuals. Likewise, society is believed to be grouped into structurally related groups or sets of roles, with different functions, meanings, or purposes. Examples of social structure include family, religion, law, economy, and class. It contrasts with "social system", which refers to the parent structure in which these various structures are embedded. Thus, social structures significantly influence larger systems, such as economic systems, legal systems, political systems, cultural systems, etc. Social structure can also be said to be the framework upon which a society is established. It determines the norms and patterns of relations between the various institutions of the society. Since the 1920s, the term has been in general use in social science, especially as a variable whose sub-components needed to be disti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Malthus
Thomas Robert Malthus (; 13/14 February 1766 – 29 December 1834) was an English cleric, scholar and influential economist in the fields of political economy and demography. In his 1798 book '' An Essay on the Principle of Population'', Malthus observed that an increase in a nation's food production improved the well-being of the population, but the improvement was temporary because it led to population growth, which in turn restored the original per capita production level. In other words, humans had a propensity to utilize abundance for population growth rather than for maintaining a high standard of living, a view that has become known as the "Malthusian trap" or the "Malthusian spectre". Populations had a tendency to grow until the lower class suffered hardship, want and greater susceptibility to war famine and disease, a pessimistic view that is sometimes referred to as a Malthusian catastrophe. Malthus wrote in opposition to the popular view in 18th-century Europe tha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Industrialization
Industrialisation ( alternatively spelled industrialization) is the period of social and economic change that transforms a human group from an agrarian society into an industrial society. This involves an extensive re-organisation of an economy for the purpose of manufacturing. Historically industrialization is associated with increase of polluting industries heavily dependent on fossil fuels. With the increasing focus on sustainable development and green industrial policy practices, industrialization increasingly includes technological leapfrogging, with direct investment in more advanced, cleaner technologies. The reorganization of the economy has many unintended consequences both economically and socially. As industrial workers' incomes rise, markets for consumer goods and services of all kinds tend to expand and provide a further stimulus to industrial investment and economic growth. Moreover, family structures tend to shift as extended families tend to no longer live ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Great Famine (Ireland)
The Great Famine ( ga, an Gorta Mór ), also known within Ireland as the Great Hunger or simply the Famine and outside Ireland as the Irish Potato Famine, was a period of starvation and disease in Ireland from 1845 to 1852 that constituted a historical social crisis which subsequently had a major impact on Irish society and history as a whole. With the most severely affected areas in the west and south of Ireland, where the Irish language was dominant, the period was contemporaneously known in Irish as , literally translated as "the bad life" (and loosely translated as "the hard times"). The worst year of the period was 1847, which became known as "Black '47".Éamon Ó Cuív – the impact and legacy of the Great Irish Famine During the Great Hunger, roughly 1 million people died and more than 1 million Irish diaspora, fled the country, causing the country's population to fall by 20–25% (in some towns falling as much as 67%) between 1841 and 1871.Carolan, MichaelÉireann's ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Food Preservation
Food preservation includes processes that make food more resistant to microorganism growth and slow the oxidation of fats. This slows down the decomposition and rancidification process. Food preservation may also include processes that inhibit visual deterioration, such as the enzymatic browning reaction in apples after they are cut during food preparation. By preserving food, food waste can be reduced, which is an important way to decrease production costs and increase the efficiency of food systems, improve food security and nutrition and contribute towards environmental sustainability. For instance, it can reduce the environmental impact of food production. Many processes designed to preserve food involve more than one food preservation method. Preserving fruit by turning it into jam, for example, involves boiling (to reduce the fruit's moisture content and to kill bacteria, etc.), sugaring (to prevent their re-growth) and sealing within an airtight jar (to prevent reconta ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Green Revolution
The Green Revolution, also known as the Third Agricultural Revolution, was a period of technology transfer initiatives that saw greatly increased crop yields and agricultural production. These changes in agriculture began in developed countries after World War II and spread globally till the late 1980s. In the late 1960s, farmers began incorporating new technologies such as high-yielding varieties of cereals, particularly dwarf wheat and rice, and the widespread use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and controlled irrigation. Agriculture also saw the adoption of newer methods of cultivation, including mechanization. These changes were often implemented as a package of practices meant to replace traditional agricultural technology. Both the Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation were heavily involved in its initial development in Mexico. One key leader was agricultural scientist Norman Borlaug, the "Father of the Green Revolution", who received the Nobel Peace Prize ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Guardian Media Group, owned by the Scott Trust. The trust was created in 1936 to "secure the financial and editorial independence of ''The Guardian'' in perpetuity and to safeguard the journalistic freedom and liberal values of ''The Guardian'' free from commercial or political interference". The trust was converted into a limited company in 2008, with a constitution written so as to maintain for ''The Guardian'' the same protections as were built into the structure of the Scott Trust by its creators. Profits are reinvested in journalism rather than distributed to owners or shareholders. It is considered a newspaper of record in the UK. The editor-in-chief Katharine Viner succeeded Alan Rusbridger in 2015. Since 2018, the paper's main news ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Humanist
''The Humanist'' is an American bi-monthly magazine published in Washington, DC. It was founded in 1941 by American Humanist Association. It covers topics in science, religion, media, technology, politics and popular culture and provides ethical critique and commentary on them. The magazine was originally published under the name of ''The New Humanist'' from 1928 to 1940 by a fellowship of American humanists based at the University of Chicago. The magazine has a small circulation, read principally by the three thousand members of the American Humanist Association. References {{DEFAULTSORT:Humanist (magazine), The Bimonthly magazines published in the United States Humanist literature Magazines established in 1941 Magazines published in Washington, D.C. American Humanist Association ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
2009 Non-fiction Books
9 (nine) is the natural number following and preceding . Evolution of the Arabic digit In the beginning, various Indians wrote a digit 9 similar in shape to the modern closing question mark without the bottom dot. The Kshatrapa, Andhra and Gupta started curving the bottom vertical line coming up with a -look-alike. The Nagari continued the bottom stroke to make a circle and enclose the 3-look-alike, in much the same way that the sign @ encircles a lowercase ''a''. As time went on, the enclosing circle became bigger and its line continued beyond the circle downwards, as the 3-look-alike became smaller. Soon, all that was left of the 3-look-alike was a squiggle. The Arabs simply connected that squiggle to the downward stroke at the middle and subsequent European change was purely cosmetic. While the shape of the glyph for the digit 9 has an ascender in most modern typefaces, in typefaces with text figures the character usually has a descender, as, for example, in . The mod ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
