Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-x4r87 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-27T03:05:33.417Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Ch. 20 - CAPITALISM, COLONIALISM, AND CUISINE

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 August 2009

Kenneth F. Kiple
Affiliation:
Bowling Green State University, Ohio
Get access

Summary

In short, Europe's colonization of Africa had nothing to do with differences between European and African peoples as white racists assume. Rather, it was due to accidents of geography and biogeography – in particular, to the continent's different areas, axes, and suites of wild plant and animal species. That is, the different historical trajectories of Africa and Europe stem ultimately from differences in real estate.

Jared Diamond (1997)

ARGUABLY, THE UNITED STATES and Europe benefited more than most of the world's regions from the quickened tempo of food globalization that followed the Columbian Exchange because, by increasing food supplies, it fueled their respective Industrial Revolutions.

This synergism was first seen in Great Britain, where the calories in sugar and potatoes from the New World stoked labor. In the towns and cities where that labor was readily available, and where even more labor could be accommodated, industries began to arise. Cities and towns, of course, raised little food so that workers had to be fed from rural areas – the food reaching urban centers via an increasingly complex network of railroads. As this occurred, more and more rural individuals were attracted to city life and factory wages, draining the countryside of manpower. Consequently, agriculture, too, had to be industrialized, which, in turn, meant even more migration to the cities because far fewer hands were needed in the fields.

Food production also became mechanized, its transportation and distribution organized, and its processing, capitalized.

Type
Chapter
Information
A Movable Feast
Ten Millennia of Food Globalization
, pp. 214 - 225
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2007

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×