The State of Global Governance: An Audit
Management of transnational issues through voluntary international cooperation has come to be referred as Global Governance. The term sounds like global government, but it is really the opposite, as it refers to management of the transnational challenges in the absence of a world government. Neither transnational challenges, nor attempts to manage them are new. We have had things like the Rhodian Law of the Sea, which provided a framework to govern maritime losses. The Hawala system has worked over a thousand years through the proactive participation of countless actors across South Asia, Middle East and the Mediterranean. The Hanseatic League provided an early glimpse of true multilateralism. Nevertheless, the depth and breath of current international cooperation around transnational issues is unprecedented. Let’s review some of the manifestations of our existing international cooperation: It took several decades to develop a system to have telegrams across national borders. And yet, today owners of four billion mobile phones have a reasonable expectation that their phones will work seamlessly when they travel to another country. World GSM operators have agreed to sensible standard practices such as every operator dedicating 112 to emergency services. At a mundane level, money can be wired across countries with tremendous speed and little inconvenience. SWIFT, the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, and IBAN, International Bank Account Number, are two systems which expanded to many a task which would not have been routine even for Rothschild. We cooperate around the internet actively and every day. Tremendous amount of data, information and knowledge is open to all 6.7 billion of us. Encylopédistes of the 18th century would be awe-struck by what is available through Wikipedia, JSTOR, Google Scholar and the like. Popular VOIP facilities such as Skype have rendered international telephony, a facility not available to Napoleon or Cengiz Khan, practically cost free for billions. CreaticeCommons is becoming a popular alternative to conventional trademarks practices. And, we all have access to trans-border broadcasting through satellite TVs, which makes diverse ideas, lives and sufferings accessible to great many, and nurturing awareness and a feeling of common humanity along the way. We have assumed that traditional sovereign competencies of national states have been more resistant to international cooperation schemes. However, countries have the facility to ask other countries to apprehend criminal suspects through Interpol, which reports to have enabled 5,600 arrests in 2008. This is not a minor achievement. We have rules governing safety at sea, pollution, and even a system for a global maritime distress, search and rescue system. There exists an audit scheme, albeit a voluntary one, to monitor compliance. Furthermore, we have a way to allocate satellite orbits, and the system is working with relatively little discontent. We have mechanisms for global health challenges and even some vital successes. Small pox has been eradicated though international cooperation; And polio may be next. The world has had the wherewithal to come up with ad hoc responses when traditional mechanisms did not suffice; The Global Fund to Fight TB, AIDS and Malaria is one such ad hoc response with encouraging results. We have also managed to cooperate to protect the genetic diversity of our main crops, and have established the Global Crop Diversity Trust. The world has demonstrated crucial capacity to identify ozone depletion as a potential problem with global consequences, and was capable of hammering out a set-up where the ozone depleting gases have been phased out. The basic grammar of the ozone problem is not very different from the climate change predicament, and the Vienna Convention and the Montreal protocol are no small accomplishments. The first example of an international normative campaign for global rules was the anti-slavery movements of 19th century, and their efforts took more than 50 years to produce the first international treaty on the issue. Another seemingly gargantuan task was around the land mines, one of the most popular ammunition of armed forces around the world. In the latter case, it took a mere seven years for a global consensus to be achieved, and for this once-popular weapon to be outlawed. There is now a new movement to establish norms concerning the trade and transfer of small weapons, which are responsible for many more deaths than nuclear weapons. Another very significant development was the formation of the International Criminal Court. Not all the states are party to the International Criminal Court, and yet the mere existence of ICC would surpass even the most optimistic utopias of the multilateralists from the last century. Amartha Sen has recently warned us against excessive fascination with ideal justice at the expense of multiple and seemingly disjointed ways of decreasing injustice. The patterns of global cooperation of the last decades seem to support Sen’s argument. Progress has been uneven and less than ideal, but, on balance, we should be encouraged by the advance of international cooperation and global governance on these multiple tracks. The more visible absence of progress is the exception, and should not be the basis of a debilitating cynicism; We need to celebrate our accomplishments and in the process muster the energy to overcome remaining challenges to a fuller global cooperation. Two glaring gaps in the existing global governance schemes are effective procedures for Responsibility-to-Protect, and of course a framework to thwart climate change. One of the earliest modern attempts to set transnational norms was around proper conduct during the time of war. The first Geneva Convention dates back to 1864. Humanity has been aware of the ultimate crime of genocide, and has profusely sworn not to let it occur again since 1940s. Yet, what has come to be known as the Responsibility to Protect, has been systematically abdicated. As long as humanity is organized primarily through national states, there is an inherent problem to send national armies to harm’s way without clear national interest. Yet, that is not the only option we have. Humans have always taken up arms in other countries for their beliefs. The international brigade at the Spanish Civil war is the most celebrated example, but the practice is older. UN needs to have a mechanism to accept volunteers; ensure adequate representation of all regions so that no particular group ends up dominating the UN Army at any given conflict; and, of course ensure their discipline during their mission as there are too many examples of presumed rescuers harassing the very people they are meant to rescue. One can even imagine a set up where not just UNSC but UNSG or the college of all former UNSGs can endorse a given mission, so that action cannot be held hostage to veto by P5. Climate change is clearly the most pressing issue facing us. Business as usual means that we will soon cross the point of no return in triggering a chain reaction of catastrophic results for human existence and civilization on Planet Earth. The qualities of the underlying dynamics make climate change an especially difficult challenge: There is some 30 years between cause and effect; that is carbon emissions and the full consequences of those emissions. The fact that significant percentages of adults continue to smoke demonstrates that humans find it difficult to give up immediate gratification in anticipation of deferred costs in 30 years. As such, climate change is the collective action problem from hell. After years of neglect, denial and foot dragging, humanity now seems to have harnessed the wherewithal to address climate change. No other challenge we face brings home our epic interdependence. Therefore, a solution to the climate change challenges could serve as the paradigm for solving other global public goods problems. Ours have been a story of trial and error, and slippages as we found ways to cooperate across border, a process which we began thousands of years ago. The audit of current state of international cooperation and global governance patterns show that perseverance, creativity, pragmatism and vision are the answer, not despair or cynicism. Hakan Altinay was a 2009 World Fellow at Yale University and is a Senior Fellow at Brookings Institution. Copyright © 2010 Yale Center for the Study of Globalization  Global Governance
When, at the dawn of globalization, the first trader left home to barter his goods or the first explorer left on a journey to discover new people or new places, the world was unknown, nor were there any rules. But as human connections spread, problems arose over how to transact business, whose law to follow, or how to avoid conflict. Over time, laws were promulgated over territories that outsiders were obliged to respect. But as global connections led to global problems, the need to develop collective rules of governance became apparent. Of the myriad issues calling for global governance, nothing is perhaps more urgent than a global agreement to deal with the threat of climate change.
YaleGlobal Newsletter - May 15, 2009 (test 1) Follow YaleGlobal on Twitter! Click here. Recent YaleGlobal Articles Can We Reverse Global Climate Change? Part I Tobacco
Many strange sights greeted Columbus and his men as they explored the New World in the fall of 1492. Certainly they did not anticipate that Europe would adopt any Amerindian customs. With a single line in his journal, Columbus described a group of Taino natives smoking rolled tobacco as they rested in the woods near Cuba's Bahia Bariay harbor that November: "The Spaniards upon their journey met with great multitudes of people, men and women with firebrands in their hands and herbs to smoke after their custom." Columbus, convinced about great riches in the New World, pursued only dreams of gold. The explorer did not realize that Europe would soon fall under the spell of tobacco and the rest of the world would follow suit. In fact, Europeans embraced tobacco before many other common products including sugar, chocolate, coffee and tea.
Columbus could not have imagined tobacco's already long and complex history from his first brief glimpse of the Taino smoking. Amerindians cultivated tobacco across both American continents, and even societies that grew nothing else still grew tobacco. A privileged plant, tobacco was often separated from other crops in elaborate, reserved gardens. A wide array of tribes employed tobacco for symbolic and medicinal purposes, as part of a hallucinogenic mix of plants in shamanistic or religious rituals, and just for social occasions. The Yecuana of Venezuela told a Genesis-like story in which women were formed from clay that came to life when tobacco smoke passed over its surface. Carved monuments depicted Mayan deities as smokers. The Iroquois of New York used tobacco as a dental remedy because it anaesthetized the pain of tooth decay. After dinner, smoking tobacco was a common practice among the upper Aztec classes. Columbus received tobacco leaves, along with other gifts from Amerindians. But history credits no single person with introducing the practice of smoking to Europe. There is a story that one of Columbus' men, Rodrigo de Xeres, demonstrated the custom to his neighbors in Spain. Frightened to see him exhaling thick clouds from his mouth and nose, they handed him over to the Inquisition, claiming that he had made a bargain with the Devil. Amerindians introduced tobacco to other European explorers, sailors and settlers - but the plant would never have made the jump to European culture without the help of physicians. They seized upon the notion that many Amerindian cultures valued tobacco as a powerful healing agent. They did not share the Amerindian belief in the supernatural character of illness, but Europeans were eager to discover new plants from the New World with healing properties. In their zeal for finding herbal remedies, these doctors did not realize that they were promoting a major source of disease.
More than any other physician, the Spanish doctor Nicolas Monardes holds the dubious distinction of establishing tobacco's reputation as a plant with remarkable capabilities. In his immensely popular history of the medicinal plants of the New World, published in 1571, Monardes claimed that tobacco cured more than 20 ailments, including cancer. Imagine that as your legacy to the medical community! The French ambassador Jean Nicot was another champion, and one of the world's most addictive substances -nicotine - was named after him. Gradually, recreational use supplanted medical use throughout Europe. Spanish doctor Juan de Cardenas, a disciple of Monardes, touches on the transition: "To seek to tell the virtues and greatness of this holy herb, the ailments which can be cured by it, and have been, the evils from which it has saved thousands would be to go on to infinity...this precious herb is so general a human need not only for the sick but for the healthy." Tobacco was traded in Asia by 1575 and then moved to the rest of the world over the next 50 years. Portuguese, Spanish and, to a lesser extent, English merchant ships carried tobacco from American colonies to the Near East, Far East and Africa. From India, tobacco moved to Ceylon in the early 1600s, according Jordan Goodman in "Tobacco in History," and simultaneously spread from China to central Asia, Eastern Europe, Mongolia and Tibet. Cultivated tobacco could be found in Indochina and Taiwan by 1630. Thus tobacco completed its circumnavigation of the globe as a cash crop. In most locales, tobacco was introduced as a medicinal herb. N. tabacum, the basic species of the tobacco plant, is adaptable to many soil and climate conditions. Tobacco does best in a warm, stable climate, growing in light soil, both drained, and heavily fertilized. The leaf varies greatly from region to region offering different tastes and flavors. The modern tobacco industry began in the US in the late 19th century with the industrial revolution and a combination of innovations - flue-cured tobacco, safety matches and James Brosnack's cigarette machine, invented in 1880. There actually would be no cigarettes as we know them if chance hadn't intervened. Flue-curing - a heat-drying process - was accidentally discovered by a slave after a fire on a North Carolina plantation, and it yielded a mild taste smokers found more pleasurable than that of bitter dark tobacco. Flue-cured tobacco produced acidic smoke, easier to inhale than the alkaline smoke associated with air- or fire-cured tobacco. Brosnack's cigarette machine mechanized the rolling process, pushing loose tobacco onto a moving belt, compressing it, and then wrapping it in a paper tube that was glued and cut into a finished cigarette. One machine could accomplish the labor of 48 workers. From the start, cigarette manufacturers were master salesmen, although their product is so addictive some claim it sells itself. They employed sophisticated advertising campaigns, giving rise to modern major tobacco companies and making the cigarette a 20th-century icon of consumer culture. Early cigarette promotions linked the product to figures whose opinions and taste were thought to be influential - singers, actresses, presidents and royalty. One marketing strategy associated cigarettes with personages of respectability; another used images of women to arouse interest. Even as the Marlboro Man became one of the most successful international campaigns in the history of advertising, the image of cigarettes and smoking transformed in the US and Europe after a 1964 US Surgeon General's report confirming the link between smoking and lung cancer. In the 1960s, 50 percent of men in the US smoked. By 2003, that number was reduced to 25 percent. Today it would be unseemly if major figures comparable to Winston Churchill, General Douglas MacArthur and Sigmund Freud were so overt in their affection for tobacco. The story of tobacco has come full-circle, from miracle cure to dangerous addiction. In many developing nations, over 60 percent of men currently smoke. Globally, the proportion of women smokers has trailed men, but is increasing. A major health tragedy could occur in the developing world within the next 30 years, even as governments of developed nations enact laws to protect their citizens against tobacco addiction and its toll on human life. Anti-tobacco sentiment has always followed the product's circumnavigation of the globe. Earlier eras had their share of stuffy or rigid critics. Shortly after tobacco was introduced to China, the emperor forbade smoking or growing the plant. The penalty was decapitation. European leaders, notably James I of England, tried to curtail tobacco use, but were torn between profits earned by taxes and moral objections. Edicts were often overturned by successors. All along the anti-tobacco movement suspected that tobacco posed problems, but had trouble building momentum around a central argument. Still, James I's Counterblaste to Tobacco in 1604 strikes a telling note: "Smoking is a custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, (and) dangerous to the lungs." Rights: Chili
Chilli, chile, chili pepper, ají, hot pepper, lup chew, mirich, felfel, bisabas, and chilipippurik are just some of the names for the same small fruit that delights people all over the world. Botanists may dispute the chili pepper's original birthplace, but its amazing journey across the world and its adoption by almost every culture proves that the chili pepper is truly a global food. The chili pepper has been with many cultures for so long - over five hundred years in some cases - that most people would be surprised to discover that it originally came from South America. Chili peppers are thought to have been eaten in Meso-America as early as 5000 BCE and to have been growing since 7000 BCE. Archaeologists have estimated that humans began farming chili peppers between 5000 BCE and 3400 BCE, which makes them one of the oldest crops cultivated by man. Clearly, chili peppers had been around long before Christopher Columbus discovered their heat on his travels to America. In fact, confusing the chili pepper with the pepper he was hoping to find in India, Columbus named it pimiento, or, Spanish for pepper. Chili pepper, however, has no relation to the black pepper, known as Piper nigrum, for which Columbus was searching. Columbus later brought the chili pepper back to Spain, calling it a spice even though it is a member of the Solanacenae family, which also includes tomatoes, potatoes, and tobacco. Columbus' error did not, however, impede the chili pepper's almost immediate migration across the world. Despite Spain's apparent early claim to the chili pepper, the Portuguese appear to be the first traders to have spread the chili pepper globally. Portugal's maritime power - rounding the Cape of Good Hope and reaching India in 1498 - set a course for the chili pepper to leave South America. The Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494 had effectively split the world in half between Spain and Portugal, and the Portuguese were keen to exploit their half, especially Brazil. By the 1500's they were regularly exporting chili peppers from Brazil, the only part of South America which Portugal could claim under the Treaty. One botanist of the 16th century referred to chili peppers from Goa, in the Indian Ocean, as "Pernambuco Peppers," named after the area in Brazil. During their trips to India, the Portuguese traders stopped in various African ports along the way. The Africans' fondness for "grains of paradise", which have a gingery, peppery taste, prepared them to absorb the piquant chili pepper into their cuisine with ease. In only a few years, chili peppers had traveled as far east on the African continent as Mozambique. But trade was only one agent of the chili pepper's spread: Portuguese intervention in Africa also played a large part. The Portuguese chose to enslave Africans from as a diverse a geographical area as possible to populate their plantations in the New World. Such a strategy was thought to reduce the chance of rebellion since the slaves would lack a common language and culture once on the plantation. As a result, the Portuguese cast a wide net in procuring slaves from Africa, and wherever the Portuguese bought slaves they also brought chili peppers, which caused their widespread and quick dispersion across the continent. While it is possible to trace the chili pepper's move from South America across the Atlantic Ocean, its travels across the Pacific are less certain. In 1529, the Treaty of Zaragosa defined Spanish and Portuguese jurisdiction in the Asia Pacific region: the Spanish received the Philippines, and Portugal received the Spice Islands, or Molucca. By 1540, the Portuguese were trading in Indonesia; soon after, chili peppers made their way to China. However, it is unclear if the Portuguese were the first to bring the chili pepper to China. Indians and Arabs were actively trading with the Chinese long before the Europeans arrived. Furthermore, Hunan and Szechuan provinces, whose cuisines use chili peppers most frequently, were connected to the non-Chinese world by the Silk Road trade route rather than by coastal ports. Moreover, at the time, there were no direct overland routes from Chinese ports to those two provinces. In 1549, the Portuguese reached Japan, but again it is unclear if they introduced the chili pepper there, because the Japanese had already ventured to Mexico in Spanish-designed ships. In 1564, the chili pepper reached the Philippines and then moved on to Melanesia and Micronesia along a Spanish-developed trade route. While Africa, India, and Asia quickly absorbed the chili pepper, Europe seemed reluctant to use it as anything more than a curiosity or an ornamental. From Spain, the chili pepper moved to Antwerp, then to Italy in 1526, and on to England in 1548. Curiously, the chili did not reach Eastern Europe through trade with other Europeans. Rather, among the various theories, it is believed that Muslim merchants brought chili peppers from India through the Persian Gulf, on to Aleppo or Alexandria, and then north into Eastern Europe. Alternatively, the Turks could have brought chili peppers from Asia and then transported them through the Persian Gulf, Asia Minor, and the Black Sea in to Hungary, which they conquered in 1526. From Hungary, the chili pepper then moved to Germany. A third possibility has the Portuguese exporting chili peppers from Hormuz, one of their colonies, to Eastern Europe to compete with black pepper from India. A German botanist in 1542 gives a recipe that calls for "Calicut pepper" and "Indian pepper." Interestingly, it was not until 1868 that Europeans learned that chili peppers were not originally from India. Most surprising is the length of time it took for the chili pepper to arrive in North America. Despite being grown in Mexico for centuries, it was not until the slave trade was in full swing that the chili pepper appeared. By 1600, the British and Dutch had broken the Spanish and Portuguese naval hegemony, freeing up the spice trade. But trade in spices did not wet the North American palate for hot chili peppers. Instead, it was the prevalence of chili peppers in African cuisine that caused their spread to the New World. Chili peppers had become such a crucial part of the Africans' diet that slave traders had to bring large quantities with them on their trans-Atlantic voyages. Furthermore, to maintain the African slaves' eating habits once in North America, the plantations had to grow chili peppers. As a result, it was not until the 17th century that the chili peppers had settled in North America. Today there are five species of chili pepper: capsicum annuum, found primarily in Meso-America, which gives us cayenne, bell, and jalapeño peppers; capsicum frutescens, found in the Amazon basin, yielding the well-known Tabasco; capsicum chinense, found in the western Amazonia region; capsicum baccatum, found only in South America; and capsicum pubescens, which only appeared in Central America and Mexico in the beginning of 20th century and is unknown elsewhere. The chili pepper's global presence owes much to its resilience and capacity to be spread even without human intervention. The flesh of the chili pepper dries well and the seeds survive for long periods, which allowed the chili's easy transport on its first trans-Atlantic trip. Furthermore, the chili's small size proved tempting to birds who eat the fruit and deposit the seeds miles away. Capsaicin, an alkaloid compound found only in chili peppers, determines the heat of the fruit. While the skin and seeds contain small amounts, it is the white membrane inside which contains almost 90% of the chili pepper's capsaicin. The name chili derives from the ancient Aztec dialect of Nahuatl, which called the pepper chiltepin. The chili pepper not only adds pungency to different foods, it also appears to have analgesic properties. The capsaicin found in chili peppers may release substances within the brain which control pain as well as stimulate feelings of well-being. Capsaicin cream has been shown to reduce arthritis pain. It is also believed to be indicated as an herbal remedy for a variety of other ailments including backaches, varicose veins, vascular conditions, swollen feet, and rheumatism. The police have also found it to be an effective deterrent, often replacing mace and tear gas with pepper spray. India is the largest consumer and exporter of chili peppers today. Exporting over 51,900 tons of chili peppers annually, India also exports chili oleoresin (a combination of oil and resin), powder, and crushed chili peppers. The top growing states for chili peppers in India are Andra Pradesh, Orissa, Mahrashtra, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, and Rajasthan. In all, India produces close to 8 million tons of dry chili pepper a year. No matter how you prefer to take your chili pepper - whether in Indian curry, mixed with Thai fish sauce, Korean kimchi, Mexican salsa, Hunan kung pao, or as a pepperoncino in Italian antipasti - the fruit not only enlivens the dish and titillates your palate, it brightens your mood. Rights: Tea
When you pour that lightly colored brew in your cup and lift that aromatic drink to your lips it is hard to imagine that you are continuing a five thousand year old practice. Tea is indeed one of the oldest drinks in history. The tortuous long path that tea has taken from China to reach the cup in you hand parallels the twists and turns taken by early processes of globalization. This legendary drink is reputed to have come from a mistake - 5000 years ago, the Emperor of China was shocked to find some tea leaves in his pot of boiling water. Known for his scientific curiosity, he proceeded to taste the drink - and he loved it. It did not take long before tea became a staple of Chinese culture. By 800 A.D. a Zen Buddhist priest had already written a comprehensive history of its use. Tea was adopted into various religious and meditative services by the Zen Buddhists, who found that the substance enhanced spiritual concentration. Buddhist missionaries to Japan brought the drink with them as an essential part of their mediation practice. In the continuing evolution of the tea myth, some Indian and Japanese Buddhists later used the magical drink to tell the story of Buddha. In their version, Buddha awoke after five years of his seven year meditation and ate the leaves of the wild tea tree in whose shadow he sat to revive himself. Soon after its introduction, the Japanese created an entire culture around tea with the Tea Ceremony or "Cha-no-yu" - meaning literally 'hot water for tea'. The ritualized pouring and serving of tea by Geisha hostesses became a mark of grace and sophistication. The Irish-Greek journalist-historian Lafcadio Hearn, who was one of the very few foreigners to gain Japanese citizenship at the time, was privileged to see this practice and wrote extensively about the years and years it took for women to master the complex art form. The original Zen Buddhist element was lost as "tea competitions" became popular amongst nobles who would win jewels or armor for guessing a particular tea blend. In the 1300s, Buddhist monks tried to initiate a campaign to bring tea back to its original Zen roots, but to no avail. As European trade with China and Japan increased, rumors of this new substance began to filter back with the caravans. No traders could quite describe how tea was produced: suggestions were as outlandish as that the leaves be boiled, salted, buttered, and eaten. It was not until 1560 - when Portuguese missionaries established a firm trade route with China - that tea began to be imported to Europe, by way of Portugal (and later the Netherlands). This account is contested, however, by those who claim that it was actually Arab traders who gave tea to the Venetians one year earlier. The first few shipments were expensive, making the service of the drink a sign of one's wealth and therefore increasing its popularity among Dutch elites. Not everyone was willing to embrace the unknown liquid though. Doctors and scholars, known as "tea heretics" could not believe that this dark, bitter substance was good for the public; academic debates raged for almost one hundred years before the mass popularity of tea (which was now cheap enough to be widely available) won out in the late 1600s. Despite the doctors' dire predictions, tea drinking actually increased the health of Europe. Water was too dangerous to drink at the time, and alcohol consumption had gotten out of hand. Tea, made with boiled, and hence safe, water was a vast improvement on the European diet. Britain was a late coming to the tea trade; it was only introduced in London in 1652, the same year as coffee and cocoa. By 1700, the British were already importing over 240,000 pounds of tea. The heaviness of British cuisine - breakfast was ale and beef and dinner not much healthier - made the refreshment of an "afternoon tea", often accompanied by baked goods, a pleasant and healthy addition to the British way of life. The British trading companies became the most famous of the European tea importers, partially because of the pivotal role the East India Trading Company played in the expansion of the British Empire into India. A new language developed in this trading business in which the Portuguese, British, Indian, and Chinese trading partners could communicate. The new "pidgin English" allowed all partners to share such terms as "chow" (food) or "cash" (money), which still exist in English slang. The trading partners did not have as peaceful and cooperative a relationship as this might suggest. Claiming that local political instability was disruptive to business interests, the India Company began to slowly take over the coastlines of India (while also pushing out Dutch and French competitors) and to force local workers to produce opium, which could be sold to China in exchange for tea. This saved the British from having to spend actual British coinage on tea and kept the exchange of capital only within the empire. The trade of opium for tea led to the Opium Wars in the early 1800s, during which the British effectively wiped out resistance to their domination of the tea trade. In the latter half of the 19th century, tea began to play a crucial role in various social movements in Europe and America. One woman who managed a bread shop in England convinced her bosses to allow her to serve tea to her favorite customers along with their purchases. The shop set up some tables in 1864 and women quickly vied for the right to drink their tea there. This new form of socializing in a 'tea shop' was the first venue for an unchaperoned woman to meet her friends and be alone, and thus inarguably contributed to women's emancipation. Likewise, tea was often the only non-alcoholic beverage choice at Inns, making it a favorite of the prohibitionists. One who abstained from alcohol was thus a "teetotaler". The newly independent Americans also contributed to the development of tea, with the 1904 invention of "iced tea" at the World's Fair in St. Louis and the 1908 creation of the first 'tea bag', making consumption less time consuming. Nowadays, tea comes in green, black, and oolong varieties. Though Europeans and Americans have traditionally favored black teas, the promises of health and dietary benefits from green teas (which are supposed to reduce cancer risk and raise metabolism) are raising its consumption. Everyone has their own individual way of drinking tea - with milk or sugar, plain, or with jam or honey as is the tradition of imperial Russians. Choosing a tea drinking method has become a way for people to express their own individuality - though this was probably not what the Zen Buddhists meant 1300 years ago when they advocated tea as a method of self-reflection! Rights: The Tomato
The great tomato, symbol of Italian cuisine, staple of many Mexican dishes, and the perfect condiment for a burger, was originally found in Peru. The tomato's global presence is undeniable, as is its adaptability to local recipes. Yet in its journey across the world, the tomato has lived under many names and endured false accusations. No one knows exactly how the tomato moved from Peru to Mexico, but the Spanish Conquistador Hernan Cortez supposedly brought it to Spain in the 1520's. From Spain, the tomato moved to Italy and France. It was known variably as the 'pomme dei moro' (Moor's apple in Spanish); 'pomi d'oro' (golden apple in Italian); and 'pomme d'amour' (love apple in French). The first varieties of the tomato were most likely yellow since Italians referred to it as golden. Interestingly, English is closest to the original name in Aztec, tomatl. Despite the tomato's initial acceptance by Southern Europeans, Northerners were hesitant to experiment with the fruit. Since the tomato belongs to the same family as the poisonous nightshade and mandrake, Northerners assumed the tomato was also hazardous. Even after it was known that "love apples" were being eaten in Europe, the English still thought of the tomato as having an unpleasant odor and taste. But the savory tomato soon won out over fears of death and bland diets. By the end of the 17th century, tomatoes were first mentioned in a cookbook from Naples. And by the mid 18th century, tomato recipes had finally insinuated themselves into the British kitchen. Meanwhile, tomatoes sailed with the colonists across the Atlantic to North America; but they were planted more for their decorative, rather than saporific, qualities. Although Thomas Jefferson ate tomatoes for dinner, and people in New Orleans enjoyed tomatoes as early as 1802, it was not until the 1820's that tomatoes were consumed in any great amount in the U.S. But with the advent of canning, tomato consumption steadily increased in the late 1800's. And thanks to the enterprising Joseph Campbell and his soup, tomato production started to soar in the 1920's. Since tomato types remain relatively unchanged with each generation, varieties with high solid content suitable for paste and canning could be developed and then maintained for many years. The recent discovery of high concentrations of lycopene, a cancer-fighting compound, in tomatoes has made them prized for their health benefits. Drinking tomato juice is thought to be a quick way to get a high dose of lycopene. Of course, people who enjoy bloody marys or bloody caesars appreciate tomato juice for its other qualities - as a complement to clear vodka. Today, the U.S., China, Turkey, Italy, and India are the top five tomato producing countries. Production in China has gone from 14 million metric tons in 1996 to 17 million metric tons in 2000. Consumption has also increased; in 1996 China consumed 11.5 kilograms per capita, while in 2000 13.5 kilograms per capita was consumed. One must not forget that much of this consumption takes the form of ketchup, which is another story in itself. The origins of ketchup are as distant from the trademark of Heinz as the tomato of Peru is from its current incarnation. In the 1600's British sailors on shore leave in China were treated to a local delicacy known as kachiap or ketsiap. Used as a dipping sauce, 'kachiap' was made from the brine and spices used to pickle fish. The British soon adopted, and then reformulated this sauce. The first British recipe for ketchup appeared in the early 1700's and included anchovies, shallots, vinegar, white wine, cloves, ginger, mace, nutmeg, pepper, and lemon peel. In the early 1800's an American in Nova Scotia, James Mease, published the first recipe for ketchup made with tomatoes. By 1830, tomato ketchup was being sold across the U.S. But it was in 1872, when H.J. Heinz added tomato ketchup to his products, that the standard was established and production took off. The tomato has become so prevalent in part because of its versatility. It has adapted itself to each cuisine with such ease few people would believe that the tomato originally came for Peru. Imagine telling an Italian that once pasta was not accompanied by pomidoro sauce or that 'insalata caprese' (tomatoes and mozzarella) would not have existed without the work of Spanish Conquistadors. And how would an Indian react to 'rogan josh' (a type of curry) or 'sambar' (a type of lentil soup) if these dishes did not have tomatoes? Add ketchup, to this list, and one sees how much different the world would be if the tomato had never left Peru. The tomato is now so common that one can hardly imagine pizza, burgers, salsa, or french fries without it. While people the world over may argue that tomato is a fruit, yet eat it with vegetables, few disagree that life without the tomato would just not be as delicious. Rights: Coffee
Whether it is mocha java, a cuppa joe, or half-decaf, skim, no-whip latte, coffee seems to be everywhere - even in Beijing's Forbidden City. But this ubiquitous pick-me-up was not always so prevalent, nor was it always so popular. At varying times a carefully guarded secret, and at others a banned drink, this has not prevented the dark brew and its aroma from spreading from its place of origin in Ethiopia to the entire world. The story has it that coffee was discovered by an attentive Ethiopian goatherd who noticed a frenzy that overcame his flock after eating the ripe berry. From Ethiopia coffee moved to Yemen where it was cultivated for centuries before arriving in Turkey in 1453. It was in Turkey that the seeds were roasted and then mashed and mixed with water, similar to our modern version. Italian traders introduced coffee to Europe and in 1600 Pope Clement VIII blessed the bean because it helped to sober up the population whose fluid intake was mostly alcoholic beverages. By the beginning of the 18th century, coffee had sailed to India and Indonesia with the Dutch. And while the Ottoman Turks had failed to overrun Vienna, current home to 1,717 cafes, their coffee had conquered the city by the time the first coffee house opened in 1675. As drinking the black beverage gained popularity, the plant itself remained scarce until the Dutch foolishly gave a coffee bush to Louis XIV. Europe's cooler climate prevented the coffee plant from thriving until nurtured in a greenhouse. (Some say coffee was the mother of the greenhouse invention.) However, it was not until French naval officer Gabriel Mathieu de Clieu brought a single plant to Martinique in 1723 that coffee production began to explode - within 50 years one plant had fostered 19 million trees on the island. Coffee soon made its way to Brazil in 1727 hidden in a bouquet of flowers. It quickly spread through the rest of Latin America and then onto Hawaii by 1823. In 1893 coffee returned home to Africa where it settled in Kenya and Tanzania. After a millennium of traveling, coffee had finally circumnavigated the globe. Today, Brazil is the largest producer of coffee, harvesting over 1 billion kilograms in 2001. Vietnam, which did not start growing coffee until 1914, is the third largest producer with 780 million kilograms in 2001. Two types of coffee are produced worldwide, arabica and robusta. Arabica, which takes its name from its origins in the Arabian peninsula, accounts for three-quarters of world production and is grown mainly in South America. Robusta, accounting for one quarter of world production, is found mainly in Africa, Asia, and Indonesia where its hardiness can withstand the climate better than arabica. Robusta also has a higher caffeine content. After a mythical birth and a secretive adolescence, coffee has emerged a heroic world traveler. One need only glance at any business meeting, friendly encounter, or morning rush to recognize that coffee is the global invigorator. Rights: The Potato
Originally found in the Andes Mountains by Spanish conquistadors in the late 1500's, the potato was first brought to Europe, then to India and on to China. Still, a wilder form of the potato was the staple diet of Peru as early as 8,000 years ago. Once thought to be poisonous or the cause of leprosy, the potato nevertheless gained ground in Europe. Better suited to the damp climate of Europe than wheat, yet not as dependent on irrigation as rice, the potato was a more reliable crop. In fact, Frederick the Great required his subjects to plant the resilient tuber as a safeguard against starvation. War also led to the popularity of the potato. Since it grows in the ground, invaders often missed the vegetable when destroying the enemy's crops. This is believed to be one reason for its prevalence in Ireland, which was plagued by war throughout the 17th century. Had the Athenians discovered the potato, they might have withstood the Spartan invasion longer during the Peloponnesian War. However, armies soon learned to look underground for the crop. The War of Bavarian Succession (1778-1779) was nicknamed the "Potato War" because both the Austrians and Prussians, unable to gain a victory, took to destroying each others' crops, mainly potatoes. As a ready and resilient food-supply, the potato allowed populations to increase, people to move away from subsistence economy, and industry to take-off. However, over reliance on the potato brought its own peril as seen in the Irish Potato Famine of the 1840's. Before the onset of the famine, Irish peasants were eating an average of 10 potatoes a day as well as feeding the potatoes to their livestock. A fungus that had arrived from North America wiped out the Irish potato crop which consisted of only two high-yield varieties. The Irish population, which had grown by 5 million in under a hundred years thanks to the hardy potato, fell by two million in over 6 years. As one scholar noted, "The Irishmen who had lived by the potato died by the potato." China is now the largest producer of potatoes with a production of over 60 million tons yearly and a 14 million ton yield. India is the fourth largest producer with an annual output of over 25 million tons. And while production has increased in developing countries so has consumption: Asia now has a yearly consumption of 14 kilograms per person (a 16% increase), while Latin America consumes 24 kilograms (a 15% increase). World potato production lies at 293 million tons. From its humble beginnings, the potato has gone from a suspicious tuber to gratin dauphinoise to aloo tikki. The gold the conquistadors craved can now be found in the meals of over a billion people today. Rights: The History of Zero
Zero, zip, zilch - how often has a question been answered by one of these words? Countless, no doubt. Yet behind this seemingly simple answer conveying nothing lays the story of an idea that took many centuries to develop, many countries to cross, and many minds to comprehend. Understanding and working with zero is the basis of our world today; without zero we would lack calculus, financial accounting, the ability to make arithmetic computations quickly, and, especially in today's connected world, computers. The story of zero is the story of an idea that has aroused the imagination of great minds across the globe. When anyone thinks of one hundred, two hundred, or seven thousand the image in his or her mind is of a digit followed by a few zeros. The zero functions as a placeholder; that is, three zeroes denotes that there are seven thousands, rather than only seven hundreds. If we were missing one zero, that would drastically change the amount. Just imagine having one zero erased (or added) to your salary! Yet, the number system we use today - Arabic, though it in fact came originally from India - is relatively new. For centuries people marked quantities with a variety of symbols and figures, although it was awkward to perform the simplest arithmetic calculations with these number systems. The Sumerians were the first to develop a counting system to keep an account of their stock of goods - cattle, horses, and donkeys, for example. The Sumerian system was positional; that is, the placement of a particular symbol relative to others denoted its value. The Sumerian system was handed down to the Akkadians around 2500 BC and then to the Babylonians in 2000 BC. It was the Babylonians who first conceived of a mark to signify that a number was absent from a column; just as 0 in 1025 signifies that there are no hundreds in that number. Although zero's Babylonian ancestor was a good start, it would still be centuries before the symbol as we know it appeared. The renowned mathematicians among the Ancient Greeks, who learned the fundamentals of their math from the Egyptians, did not have a name for zero, nor did their system feature a placeholder as did the Babylonian. They may have pondered it, but there is no conclusive evidence to say the symbol even existed in their language. It was the Indians who began to understand zero both as a symbol and as an idea. Brahmagupta, around 650 AD, was the first to formalize arithmetic operations using zero. He used dots underneath numbers to indicate a zero. These dots were alternately referred to as 'sunya', which means empty, or 'kha', which means place. Brahmagupta wrote standard rules for reaching zero through addition and subtraction as well as the results of operations with zero. The only error in his rules was division by zero, which would have to wait for Isaac Newton and G.W. Leibniz to tackle. But it would still be a few centuries before zero reached Europe. First, the great Arabian voyagers would bring the texts of Brahmagupta and his colleagues back from India along with spices and other exotic items. Zero reached Baghdad by 773 AD and would be developed in the Middle East by Arabian mathematicians who would base their numbers on the Indian system. In the ninth century, Mohammed ibn-Musa al-Khowarizmi was the first to work on equations that equaled zero, or algebra as it has come to be known. He also developed quick methods for multiplying and dividing numbers known as algorithms (a corruption of his name). Al-Khowarizmi called zero 'sifr', from which our cipher is derived. By 879 AD, zero was written almost as we now know it, an oval - but in this case smaller than the other numbers. And thanks to the conquest of Spain by the Moors, zero finally reached Europe; by the middle of the twelfth century, translations of Al-Khowarizmi's work had weaved their way to England. The Italian mathematician, Fibonacci, built on Al-Khowarizmi's work with algorithms in his book Liber Abaci, or "Abacus book," in 1202. Until that time, the abacus had been the most prevalent tool to perform arithmetic operations. Fibonacci's developments quickly gained notice by Italian merchants and German bankers, especially the use of zero. Accountants knew their books were balanced when the positive and negative amounts of their assets and liabilities equaled zero. But governments were still suspicious of Arabic numerals because of the ease in which it was possible to change one symbol into another. Though outlawed, merchants continued to use zero in encrypted messages, thus the derivation of the word cipher, meaning code, from the Arabic sifr. The next great mathematician to use zero was Rene Descartes, the founder of the Cartesian coordinate system. As anyone who has had to graph a triangle or a parabola knows, Descartes' origin is (0,0). Although zero was now becoming more common, the developers of calculus, Newton and Lebiniz, would make the final step in understanding zero. Adding, subtracting, and multiplying by zero are relatively simple operations. But division by zero has confused even great minds. How many times does zero go into ten? Or, how many non-existent apples go into two apples? The answer is indeterminate, but working with this concept is the key to calculus. For example, when one drives to the store, the speed of the car is never constant - stoplights, traffic jams, and different speed limits all cause the car to speed up or slow down. But how would one find the speed of the car at one particular instant? This is where zero and calculus enter the picture. If you wanted to know your speed at a particular instant, you would have to measure the change in speed that occurs over a set period of time. By making that set period smaller and smaller, you could reasonably estimate the speed at that instant. In effect, as you make the change in time approach zero, the ratio of the change in speed to the change in time becomes similar to some number over zero - the same problem that stumped Brahmagupta. In the 1600's, Newton and Leibniz solved this problem independently and opened the world to tremendous possibilities. By working with numbers as they approach zero, calculus was born without which we wouldn't have physics, engineering, and many aspects of economics and finance. In the twenty-first century zero is so familiar that to talk about it seems like much ado about nothing. But it is precisely understanding and working with this nothing that has allowed civilization to progress. The development of zero across continents, centuries, and minds has made it one of the greatest accomplishments of human society. Because math is a global language, and calculus its crowning achievement, zero exists and is used everywhere. But, like its function as a symbol and a concept meant to denote absence, zero may still seem like nothing at all. Yet, recall the fears over Y2K and zero no longer seems like a tale told by an idiot. References: 2. Seife, Charles (2000). Zero: The Biography Rights: News Wizard |
