A long view of globalisation in short: The agricultural revolution (2018) | Hacker News Reader

A long view of globalisation in short: The agricultural revolution (2018)

voxeu.org

84 pointsOsiris3015 comments

There isn't a good option in the UI to view the next or previous entries in this five-part series, so here are the rest if anyone is interested:

[Part 1]: https://voxeu.org/content/long-view-globalisation-short-part...

[Part 2]: https://voxeu.org/content/long-view-globalisation-short-huma...

[Part 4]: https://voxeu.org/content/long-view-globalisation-short-grea...

[Part 5]: https://voxeu.org/content/long-view-globalisation-short-new-...

Reading through the article there were a few things that irritated me: referring to the Indus valley civilization as India/Pakistan, the city of Kolkata didn't exist until the 17th century and Kochi on the Western coast of India gained in prominence only after the earthquake of 1341. The map shows both those places in the year AD 1.

That does seem a bit weird - especially as Mesopotamia is also included in that list rather than the modern countries in that area.

He does mention the Fertile Crescent and the modern-day countries but seems to suggest that agriculture then moved to Mesopotamia. Not true.

The map specifically says that it's using the corresponding modern names "where possible".

It would have been nice to see a bit more inclusion of what was happening in the Americas during this same period, since they were already fairly populated. He also mentions the impact of Bubonic plague, but neglects to mention the early initial impact of smallpox in the Americas - some estimates are that it killed roughly 10% of all human life on the planet in less than 100 years.

>"Our new data-driven best estimate is a death toll of 56 million by the beginning of the 1600s — 90 percent of the pre-Columbian Indigenous population and around 10 percent of the global population at the time. This makes the “Great Dying” the largest human mortality event in proportion to the global population, putting it second in absolute terms only to World War II, in which 80 million people died — 3% of the world’s population at the time."

https://www.pri.org/stories/2019-01-31/european-colonization...

Given that the "discovery" of the "New World" was a pivotal feature of the period alluded to in the article, the fact that it had just been massively depopulated and was then taken over by new settlers seems hugely relevant to a "long view on globalization".

In addition, there is good evidence that agriculture was independently invented in the Americas, in addition to its advent in the fertile crescent and early china.

I don't know if the incredible agricultural diversity coming out of the Valley of Mexico has an equal[1].

1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domesticated_plants_of_Mesoa...

Raw calories matter a lot more for development, though.

You would like this book:

https://www.versobooks.com/books/2448-a-people-s-history-of-...

"Climate scientists don't know why, but, starting 20 millennia ago, the earth’s climate began to warm."

Maybe it's just something the Earth does.

Right, the question is "why does the Earth just warm sometimes, specifically 20 millennia ago?"

There's lots of things that affect albedo (volcanos, large meteor strikes, glaciation) and also sunspots.

The Great Lakes basins were caused by glaciers. They're not called Great for no reason - they're huge, and some are deep. They "contain 21% of the world's surface fresh water by volume."

It's hard to imagine Earth being covered by ice down to 42 degrees latitude. The more ice, the more reflection of solar rays (albedo.)

While true, I would recommend reading this comic, showing the different rates of warming.

https://xkcd.com/1732/

that was a long post but amazing

Don't forget about amber road that moved amber to other side of the world. They didn't go back with empty hands.

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