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Lunch » Tags » Books » Reviews » Empires of Food: Feast, Famine, and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations

Empires of Food: Feast, Famine, and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations

1 rating: 4.0

2010 nonfiction book by Evan D.G. Fraser and Andrew Rimas

The agricultural system that sustains modern society will eventually destroy it, argues this gloomy ecohistory. Leeds University agricultural researcher Fraser and Boston journalist Rimas survey a range of premodern civilizations, including Sumer, Han … see full wiki

Tags: Books, Book, Nonfiction, History, Agricultural Sciences

Genre: Agricultural Sciences

Publisher: Free Press

Date Published: June 15, 2010

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The role food supplies have played in the history of our world.

Nov 12, 2011

by drifter51
posted in Green Living

Rating:

"About our food empire, the doomsayers will continue to grumble while the optimists put their faith in technology or God. The pessimists at least have the backing of history. For ten thousand years, human beings have built food empires and whittled them back into parched earth and hunger." p. 171

Prior to the dawn of agriculture human beings were hunter-gatherers. Essentially the men hunted and fished while the women gathered nuts and berries and cared for the children. These hunter-gatherers were nomads who moved from place to place and lived in caves and shelters made of rocks, branches and animal skins. Generally they lived in small bands of about 30 people. Then an extraordinary thing happened.  Along about 12,000 years ago the mammoths disappeared from the face of the earth leaving the men with precious little work to do. History suggests that it was about this time that the concept of farming or agriculture took hold.  Over time men discovered that they had a new vocation in life.....trading commodities. This development would change everything and mankind would never be the same again. "Empires Of Food: Feast, Famine and the Rise and Fall Of Civilizations" chronicles the rise of agriculture and the impact it has had on civiizations through the ages from the Roman Empire to the ancient Mayans to the people living here in the 21st century. And as authors Evan D.G. Fraser and Andrew Rimas point out time and again in this book agriculture is a very risky business and human beings keep making the same deadly mistakes over and over again. The fate of civilizations hinge on their ability to feed the people. You will discover precisely what caused the demise of many of the greatest civilizations in the history of the world and why we who reside in the 21st century should have plenty of cause for concern. Needless to say there is plenty of "food for thought" in "Empires of Food".

Fraser and Rimas explain that towards the end of the Dark Ages (around 900 A.D.) monasteries began to spring up all over Western Europe. While most of the population lacked work and was mired in hopeless poverty the industrious monks figured out a way to grow and store food surpluses. This was in all likelihood the beginning of agriculture as we know it. The one thousand year history of agriculture teaches us there seems to be a certain cycle of events that has repeated itself time and again. Put simply when food supplies are plentiful people tend to have more babies. And as the population increases farmers opt to clear-cut unused land and turn it over to crop production. When populations increase exponentially these practices will invariably result in severe erosion of the soil. Likewise, failure to rotate crops will eventually result in soil exhaustion in those places. Large scale agriculture also exposes human beings to the fallout from damage done by extreme drought, climate change, pests and insects. The inevitable result is dwindling food supplies, famine, disease and death. "Empires of Food" chonicles the catostrophic consequences of these events in places all over the globe from Mexico and India to Ireland, Italy and Ethiopia. Furthermore, the authors opine that our 21st century food empire is clearly unsustainable and that within a mere generation or two we are probably doomed to the same fate unless we make some rather substantial changes in the way we go about growing our food supply. Clearly there are numerous obstacles to overcome if that is ever going to happen.

"Empires Of Food: Feast, Famine and the Rise and Fall Of Civilizations" is the first book I have read about these specific issues in a good many years. I noted with considerable interest that a couple of reviewers were quite critical of some of the "inaccuracies and distortions" in this book. Whether or not this is true I am not qualified to say. But what I am prepared to say is that reading "Empires of Food" has made me much more cognizant of all of the important issues surrounding the way we produce food in our world today. The authors firmly believe that gradually returnng to more "locally grown" food supplies in the years and decades ahead might be the only to avert a disaster of monumental proportions.  And the history lessons found in this book would seem to back up that assertion. At the end of the day I found "Empires Of Food: Feast, Famine and the Rise and Fall Of Civilizations" to be a well-researched and pretty well-written book. It seems to me it would be well worth your time and attention. Highly recommended!

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