Dave Becomes Even More Insufferable (Thanks Charles C. Mann!)

I just finished the new Charles C. Mann book The Wizard and the Prophet (including both appendices) and now I'm chock full of facts and leaking whole lot of half-assed opinions; the Wizard is represented by the so-called father of the Green Revolution, Norman Borlaug, and the Prophet is symbolized by conservationist and ecologist William Vogt . . . Prophets prophesy doom unless we "cut back! cut back!" and Prophets preach conserving wetlands and open spaces, reducing consumption, utilizing bottom up energy solutions, and basically halting constant economic growth and development, which comes at the cost of the earth's resources; Wizards are the "techno-optimists" and they are sure that we will think our way through all these problems, often with large scale projects-- whether they be to harness wind, sun, and tide, desalinate the oceans, or curb global warming by putting sulfur-dioxide in the air; there's also a lot about wheat in the book, Norman Borlaug painstakingly bred super-wheat in order to feed the starving masses (a fun fact, wheat is incredibly diverse genetically and thus there are infinite variations to breed, while humans are incredibly similar genetically-- chew on that, racists!-- and two humans who look nothing alike are more similar genetically than two chimpanzees from the same troop) and Mann describes this wheat breeding in great detail . . . I definitely skimmed this portion of the book-- it's more intense than the corn section of The Omnivore's Dilemma-- but I'm certain that if you select for extra rubisco, throw in a little Haber-Bosch, then you're feeding the billions . . . but a planet with ten billion humans will not resemble our current conception of earth (although we are rapidly approaching this future as far as biodiversity is concerned, see various posts on The Sixth Extinction) and the Prophets worry that super-wheat will simply exacerbate the population bomb . . . and there's a chance that both the Wizards and the Prophets are wrong and Lynn Margulis is right; Margulis, one of the most prominent researchers in the field of microorganisms, believes our planet is a Petri dish, and like most other species, we will breed and exceed-- we will use up all our resources until calamity strikes . . . there are a few indications that she could be wrong-- but nothing to write home about-- violence is at an all time low, in an exponential sense, and there have been some bottom-up successes in Burkina Faso that indicate that we could reforest the desert, creating a giant carbon sink, reinvigorated soil, and a more humid landscape . . . anyway, the conflict in the book, between the Wizard's desire to create technology "to soar beyond natural constraints" and the Prophets hope that we can learn to live in a "steady state" negotiation with our planet, is going to come to a head in our lifetime and Charles C. Mann does a fantastic job with an even-handed look on how things might change (I also highly recommend his two other noted books, 1491 and 1493, which describe the Americas before and after the Columbian exchange).

How Much Better is 1493 is Than 1491? It's Two Better . . .

Charles Mann's new book 1493: Uncovering The New World Columbus Created is worth the price of admission simply for the chapter on malaria, but my favorite section covers the phenomenon of the quilombo-- a fugitive slave town established in the forests and jungles of South and Central America . . . of the millions of slaves imported to the Americas, countless thousands escaped the horrors of the cane fields and silver mines by vanishing into the jungle to establish communities "protected by steep terrain, thickly packed trees, treacherous rivers, and lethal booby traps" and these settlements-- often built in conjunction with the natives, who were also targeted for slavery-- endured for decades or even centuries (El Salvador's quilombo Liberdade has a population of 600,000 and is said to be the largest Afro- American community in the Western Hemisphere) and Mann's country by country history of these off-the-grid villages, towns and cities, which (to an untrained eye) were often indistinguishable from pristine jungle and which existed in surprisingly close proximity to the white settlements, with the expected consequences: the denizens of the quilombos waged guerrilla warfare, engaged in diplomacy, and traded with the ruling Spanish, Dutch, and Portuguese; the Europeans usually gave up on the fight and negotiated because they were laid low from jungle diseases that the natives and African Americans were immune to . . . and because Charles Mann enlightened me on so many new topics in such a detailed and engaging manner, I am giving this book the highest honor that The Sentence of Dave can bestow: it scores 1493 points out of a possible 1491 and I am replacing Mann's previous book 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus with the sequel on my list of 105 Books to Read Before You Die . . . congratulations Charles Mann, I can imagine how proud you are to make The List.

Didja Know #1 (Brought To You By Charles C. Mann)

I have a habit of reading non-fiction books that force me to say the ever-annoying phrase "Didja know   . . ." followed by some inane fact that no one but myself cares about-- sorry-- and I'm halfway through another book like this-- 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created by Charles C. Mann-- and (lucky for you) I read his earlier book 1491: New Revelation of the Americas Before Columbus before I began writing this blog, so you won't have to learn the truth about the civilizations that were here when the Europeans arrived, but, since I am on vacation, I will provide you with some interesting ideas from 1493 over the next few days, some of which I knew before I read the book, and some of which you might know as well . . . so here we go: didja know that the most potent form of malaria was imported from the swamps of Southern England to America, and was a major cause of why slavery took root in the South . . . because while indentured servants were cheaper than buying a slave, they kept dying of malaria, while the African Americans, due to sickle cell and Duffy antigen mutations, were more resistant to the plasmodium parasite and so-- though no one knew about the parasite itself-- plantations that used slaves fared better than plantations that used indentured servants and this advantage propelled them to success and gave slavery a strong hold below the malarial Mason-Dixon line (malaria also helped the nascent United States, Cornwallis's army was mainly composed of "unseasoned" Scots and he camped near a swamp before his fateful surrender to malarial resistant Southern troops at Yorktown).