Back to Nature

via Flick

The Dark Geography of the Pentagon's Secret World

Blank Spots on the Map: The Dark Geography of the Pentagon's Secret World.

Cool link for the Day

Crib Candy

Where you live really matters

Who's Your City?: How the Creative Economy Is Making Where to Live the Most Important Decision of Your Life
by Richard Florida

Jeffrey Sachs on The Daily Show

Potato Fact of the Day

In 1596 the English accidentally got their first introduction to the potato, when Sir Francis Drake set sail for England after having conquered the Caribbean regions, wresting them away from the Spanish. He took some potatoes for the trip. He is said to have stopped over at Virginia to pick up some homesick British soldiers, one of whom took a sample of this plant to a botanist friend, John Gerard. This botanist introduced the potato to the world, as a product of Virginia in 1597. The fact was that it wasn’t until the seventeenth century that potatoes arrived on American soil!! When it did, it was due to the Irishmen who had settled in New Hampshire.

The fact was that in Europe, only the Irish were willing to brave all the rumors surrounding this little veggie, and still eat it. Many believed it was poisonous because it belonged to the same botanical family as belladonna, that it caused leprosy because it had given a rash once, that it was not mentioned in the bible hence was unholy, and all sorts of other ridiculous stories. It was only the Irish who favored it, the tuber grew well in their climate and also provided the nutrition the growing population in Ireland needed. It was also considered an aphrodisiac, but that didn’t bother them!! In fact, it was so identified with the Irish that in 1733, the English seedsman Stephen Switzer summed up popular opinion of the potato as "that which was heretofore reckon'd a food fit only for Irishmen and clowns."

In 1588 the potato had arrived in Germany but was considered fit only for consumption of prisoners. Only in 1744 King William ordered peasants to plant them, in order to save them from famine, that it got acceptance as regular food.

It was, however, in Germany that potatoes got their best ally to, as Antoine August Parmentier, a French Chemist who had lived on potatoes while held captive during the seven-year war. When he returned home, he used all his PR powers to gain acceptance for the humble tuber and succeeded. He published a thesis on "Inquiry into nourishing vegetables that at times of necessity could be substituted for ordinary food" in 1773, and also brought a bouquet of potato flowers to King Louis XVI’s birthday party. The king was gracious enough to place a flower in his lapel and his wife; Queen Marie Antoinette wore them in her hair. The Potato had arrived.

The smart chemist decided to continue his potato popularizing activity, throwing parties where up to twenty dishes were made of potatoes, and also obtained permission to plant an acre with potato plants. The real strategy was yet to come. The acre was fastidiously guarded during the day and left unsecured during the night. Curiosities were aroused as to why such an ordinary field needs to be guarded and sure enough, thefts of the plant became regular during the nights. Soon enough, the potato found its way throughout the French countryside. By 1813, the potato had gained acceptance in Scotland, Holland, Austria, Switzerland, Germany and Italy. Thanks to the French, potatoes were finally deemed chic enough to eat.

The potato was such an important part of the Irish diet that almost 20% of their population was wiped out in the middle of the seventeenth century, when a potato crop failed. In 1845, another potato famine hit Ireland and this time they migrated in great numbers to the United States.

-To Fry or To Chip

A different way to learn economic history

A History Of The World In Six Glasses
by Tom Standage

And a Bottle of Rum: A History of the New World in Ten Cocktails
by Wayne Curtis
Spice: The History of a Temptation
by Jack Turner

Salt: A World History
by Mark Kurlansky

History of the Breast
by Marilyn Yalom

The Immortal Game: A History of Chess
by David Shenk


The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic--and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World
by Steven Johnson

The American Plague: The Untold Story of Yellow Fever, the Epidemic that Shaped Our History
by Molly Caldwell Crosby

The Great Arab Conquests: How the Spread of Islam Changed the World We Live In
by Hugh Kennedy

The Wages of Sin: Sex and Disease, Past and Present
by Peter Lewis Allen

Birth of the Chess Queen : A History
by Marilyn Yalom

The History of Human Marriage
by Edward Alexander Westermarck

A History of the Wife
by Marilyn Yalom

The True History of Chocolate,
by Sophie D. Coe, Michael D. Coe

The Potato: How the Humble Spud Rescued the Western World
by Larry Zuckerman

Bananas: An American History
by Virginia Scott Jenkins

Vanilla : The Cultural History of the World's Favorite Flavor and Fragrance
by Patricia Rain

The Story of Corn
by Betty Fussell

Corn and Capitalism: How a Botanical Bastard Grew to Global Dominance
by Arturo Warman

Tobacco: A Cultural History of How an Exotic Plant Seduced Civilization
by Iain Gately

Seeds of Wealth: Five Plants That Made Men Rich
by Henry Hobhouse

Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World
by Mark Kurlansky

The Big Oyster: History on the Half Shell
by Mark Kurlansky

The Most Important Fish in the Sea: Menhaden and America
by H. Bruce Franklin

Citrus: A History
by Pierre Laszlo

Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World
by Dan Koeppel

Beans: A History
by Ken Albala

Medieval Cuisine of the Islamic World: A Concise History with 174 Recipes
by Lilia Zaouali (Author), Charles Perry (Foreword), M. B. DeBevoise (Translator)

Food: The History of Taste
by Paul Freedman

Taste: The Story of Britain Through Its Cooking
by Kate Colquhoun

Cavalier: A Tale of Chivalry, Passion, and Great Houses
by Lucy Worsley

Moveable Feasts: From Ancient Rome to the 21st Century, the Incredible Journeys of the Food We Eat
by Sarah Murray

Delizia!: The Epic History of the Italians and Their Food
by John Dickie

The United States of Arugula: The Sun Dried, Cold Pressed, Dark Roasted, Extra Virgin Story of the American Food Revolution
by David Kamp

Vaccine: The Controversial Story of Medicine's Greatest Lifesaver
by Arthur Allen

Prostitution, Race and Politics: Policing Venereal Disease in the British Empire
by Philippa Levine

Impotence: A Cultural History
by Angus McLaren

Putting Science in Its Place: Geographies of Scientific Knowledge
by David N. Livingstone

Placing the Enlightenment: Thinking Geographically about the Age of Reason
by Charles W. J. Withers

Sex, Botany and Empire
by Patricia Fara

Ecology and Empire: Environmental History of Settler Societies
by Tom Griffiths (Editor), Libby Robin (Editor)

The First Modern Economy: Success, Failure, and Perseverance of the Dutch Economy, 1500-1815
by Jan de Vries (Author), Ad van der Woude

Plants and Empire: Colonial Bioprospecting in the Atlantic World
by Londa Schiebinger

Death in the Pot: The Impact of Food Poisoning on History
by Morton Satin

Matters of Exchange: Commerce, Medicine, and Science in the Dutch Golden Age
by Harold J. Cook

The Jewel House: Elizabethan London and the Scientific Revolution
by Deborah E. Harkness

Clean: A History of Personal Hygiene and Purity
by Virginia Smith

A Mind of Its Own: A Cultural History of the Penis
by David M. Friedman

Plague Ports: The Global Urban Impact of Bubonic Plague, 1894-1901
by Myron Echenberg

The Strange Case of the Broad Street Pump: John Snow and the Mystery of Cholera
by Sandra Hempel

Champagne: How the World's Most Glamorous Wine Triumphed Over War and Hard Times
by Don Kladstrup , Petie Kladstrup

War, Wine, and Taxes: The Political Economy of Anglo-French Trade, 1689-1900
by John V.C. Nye

Power and Plenty: Trade, War, and the World Economy in the Second Millennium
by Ronald Findlay (Author), Kevin H. O'Rourke (Author)

Contours of the World Economy 1-2030 AD: Essays in Macro-Economic History
by Angus Maddison

A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World
by Gregory Clark

God and Gold: Britain, America, and the Making of the Modern World
by Walter Russell Mead

Emerging-Disease Hot Spots

First Map of Emerging-Disease Hot Spots
Map of zoonotic pathogens from wildlife, shown from lowest occurence (green) to highest (red)