48 pages • 1 hour read
Tom StandageAn Edible History of Humanity
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2008A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 3Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 3: “Global Highways of Food”
Part 3, Chapter 5 Summary: “Splinters of Paradise”
Spices occupy a highly influential space in the history of trade and international relations. Greek and Roman writers, in describing spices like cinnamon, frankincense, and pepper, invented fantastical origins. The tall tales surrounding spices came from the Arab traders who transported products across the desert, concealing their sources from customers in the Mediterranean. The fanciful lore surrounding the spices and their obscurity made it possible for Arab traders to demand high sums for their products. The Latin origin for the English word “spice” also makes up the root word for “special,” associating spices with luxury. Roman documents from the fifth century reveal that spices were traded alongside other high market goods, including ivory, silk, and animals such as lions and leopards.
Standage proposes that spices played a key role in reshaping the world by enticing European colonists to expand their trading empires and build a comprehensive understanding of global geography. Europeans were eager to trade with India but struggled to find a direct route, as Arab merchants monopolized the Arabian Peninsula. It was new knowledge of sea routes that gave Alexandrian and Roman soldiers a direct line to trading with India and China. Many were critical of the increase in trade. Pliny the Elder, a first century Roman writer, worried that India was absorbing all their money and goods in return for unnecessary items like spices and silk.
Along with spices, other things made their way across the globe, including languages and religions. Both Christianity and Islam spread widely, with Islam growing faster, particularly through trade. Disease spread too. The Black Death swept throughout Europe, likely carried by fleas on rats from trading ships. In the midst of all this change, the control of trade routes by Muslim traders continued to spur Europeans to find new routes to China and India.
Part 3, Chapter 6 Summary: “Seeds of an Empire”
In the 15th century, some European cosmographers proposed that the fastest route to China for trade was not by traveling east. Instead, they proposed that traveling west would land them directly on China’s shores and enable them to bypass the hold on the Arabian Peninsula by Arab traders. Christopher Columbus amassed a library of writing on the theory and, though his sources were dubious, began seeking funding for an expedition. He struggled until King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain heard his proposal and offered patronage, hoping that trading expeditions could contribute to the growth of Christianity.
Famously, Columbus did not land in China. Instead, he landed in Cuba. Because the origins of spices were still relatively unknown to traders, he was unable to identify the trees and plants that would offer a new supply. Columbus mistakenly claimed that the trees he saw in Cuba were laden with spices, and despite evidence that he had not landed in China, he continued to insist that he had. Despite his many failures, though, he had alerted the rest of the world of the existence of the Americas.
Another attempt by the Portuguese followed the west coast of Africa to establish trade and widen the spread of Christianity. At the time, many people believed that the Indian Ocean was landlocked; the discovery of Africa’s southern cape proved otherwise, providing an opportunity for Portugal to move into the Indian Ocean. Portuguese sailors discovered that traders in the Indian Ocean were unarmed and used to operating within a peaceful trade system: “Portugal did not merely hope to participate in the Indian Ocean trade; it wanted to dominate it, and force the Muslims out” (94). Taking advantage of this peaceful system, Portugal used intimidation and violence to try to uproot Muslim control, an attempt that ultimately failed. Later, the Dutch took control of Eastern trade.
The spice trade opened the global market and changed the course of human history. Standage compares modern arguments about the importance of locality in eating to ancient writing with similar complaints. He explains that the matter of ethical eating is far more complicated than adhering to a locally sourced diet. In many instances, transporting food has a far smaller environmental impact than producing food in unsuitable local environments.
Part 3 Analysis
Standage continues to emphasize the dramatic nature in the changes in humans due to agriculture by paralleling those changes with the changes in plants. When compared to teosinte, its wild ancestor, an ear of corn looks like an alien object. The size and large number of exposed kernels barely resembles that of corn’s natural origins. Its evolution is the result of hundreds of years of selective breeding and propagation. Yet, as Standage argues, the changes made to corn pale compared to the changes in human society due to agriculture. Inherent in the theme of The Coevolution of Humans and Plants is the concept that humans today interact and behave completely differently from how we once did, just like the plants we have manipulated. These two chapters detail the story of humanity as a journey toward forming—whether intentionally or not—solidified agrarian societies. Standage explores the impact of the spice trade on global foodways and international relations, as well as how these global connections contributed to the spread of Christianity and Islam. The global trade market, which was built on the foundation of farming, drastically altered how humans interacted with one another and the planet.
In Chapter 5, Standage devotes his attention to spices, further solidifying the relationship between Agriculture and Power. When discussing agriculture and farming, spices may seem like a strange direction to take. They are not necessary for cooking and eating and have little nutritional value. Standage incorporates spices, however, as an example of how food granted power in a direct and indirect sense. The spice trade introduced a new idea: goods as a symbol of status. Consuming was no longer about need; it was also about want. Because spices were difficult to obtain and expensive, they were associated with the wealthy elite. Control of this trade meant control of profits. It also communicated social control, with the folklore surrounding spices granting the owner of spices semi-mythological prestige.
Standage notes as well how spices intensified the will of agricultural societies to expand and, in tandem, increase their power. Countries were racing to establish new trade routes with India and China to bypass Arab control of the spice market. They sent ships in all directions, trying to find new pathways for direct trade. Controversial historical figure Christopher Columbus believed he found a route directly from Portugal to Asia by traveling west. Like many of his peers, Columbus did not know the origins of many popular spices, including cinnamon and nutmeg. He falsely reported that he saw spices in Cuba. Arab traders had concealed the originations of spices to maintain their control of the market. His colossal mistake led to a better understanding of geography and the eventual colonization of the Americas. Although he did not find gold or spices in the Americas, he brought back reports of fertile land that would later be used for sugar plantations and slavery.
Standage does not deviate from his thesis of Agriculture as a Destructive Force. In his discussion of the pursuit for spices and spice trade, he points to the violence among nations as they competed for trade. Portugal discovered ships could round the cape of Africa to access the Indian Ocean. On learning that trade there was peaceful, Portugal applied European cultural values of dominance and control to the region, terrorizing ships to gain a monopoly on the market. Furthermore, the Columbian Exchange fast-tracked climate change and pushed people toward eating foods not grown locally. However, Standage adds a note here that contradicts more contemporary efforts at ethical consumption. Namely, he explains that it is an oversimplification to view locality as the answer to this problem, suggesting that some foods have a lower carbon footprint when produced in other countries.
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