Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900–1900. By Alfred W. Crosby. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986. xiv + 368 pp. $22.95.)

The Tools of Empire: Technology and European Imperialism in the Nineteenth Century

K. SALAMAN, after 40 years of research on genetD ical, morphological, pathological, and related studies of the potato, and 9 years in the preparation of the material, presents the most comprehensive book that has been published on this subject. He shows by the records of the ancient Peruvian pottery that the potato was cultivated as early as the second century A.D., and that it influenced considerably the art and the social and religious customs of the ancient civilizations of the Andean plateaus. He discusses the potato in pre-Spanish Peru, and by documentary evidence shows that Costellanos was the first white inan to find and describe the potato and not Cieza de Leon who has for years been given the credit for the discovery. He disproves the Drake legend concerning the introduction of the potato into Ireland and presents evidence to show that Raleigh may have been at least indirectly responsible for this event. T o the potato geneticist and others interested in botanical relationships, the author’s discussion of the species and the place of origin of the first introductions into Europe is of great interest. It is indicated that the first varieties to reach the British Isles belonged to the Solanum andigenurn species and not to S. tuberosum, as has been commonly supposed, and that they originated in the Andean highlands and not in southern Chile or in Chiloe Island, as the Russians claimed. The characteristics of other species, early culture, preservation, and use are discussed in considerable detail. The conhision and errors of early botanists, such as Gerard, are presented. The prejudices that attended the first introductions into European countries, originated by herbalists, medical men, and others, are described with documentary evidence to prove their existence. Many of these seem l’antastic, but no more absurd than some of the notions held at present. In spite of opposition and in response to a need the potato soon after its introduction assumed a place of importance in the economic and political life first in Ireland and later in England, Wales, and Scotland. The chapter on Potato Varieties, Past, Present, and Future, is of especial interest to potato geneticists and pathologists. Here the author gives the characteristics of many of the old varieties produced for the most part during the last half of the nineteenth century. They were bred by amateurs, “raiser-selectionists”, whose methods were empirical; but they produced a wide range of varieties, “exhibiting every shade of maturity and eating quality, combined with elegance of appearance and high yields”. Most of these varieties became infected with viruses, late blight (Phytophthora infestam), or wart disease (Synchytrizim endobioticurn). Early in the twentieth century potato breeding entered a new phase. Empirical methods were no longer adequate, and scientific methods were ushered in. The techniques and outstanding results are described in the account given of the efforts to produce varieties immune from or resistant to wart, late blight, and viruses. This chapter should be an inspiration and a guide to geneticists, pathologists, and agronomists, regardless of the crop with which they are working. Of chief interest to students of political science, sociology, and economics are the 20 chapters that give in detail the social, political, religious, and economic conditions and changes, chiefly in the British Isles from the sixteenth to the twentieth century. I t is indicated that the potato was both a blessing and a curse to Ireland; a blessing in that it provided the peasants the most food for the least labor of any of the crops; a curse in that the employers were quick to take advantage of the situation by paying lower wages because the workers had another means of subsistence. Then, too, the potato soon became the chief food among the peasants, and when crop failures resulted, as they did in the blight years of 1845 to 1847, a large number of people died of starvation and many others were reduced to dire poverty. The author emphasizes the important part of the potato in these calamities; but the impoverishing acts, the dispossessions, the raises in rents, and other harmful measures might have brought about similar calamities even if the potato had never reached Ireland, especially if the peasants were dependent on any one single food crop. One-crop dependence has always been a dangerous practice. The potato, because of its qualities of large production for little labor and excellent food value, may have contributed to Ireland’s woes; but that it should be blamed so heavily is questionable. A different picture is presented in the chapters that deal with England, Scotland, Wales, and Jersey. In these accounts it is clear that the potato has contributed much to the welfare and happiness of the people, as it has in many of the other countries of the world. The chapter on The Industrial Uses of the Potato by W. G. Burton shows that a high proportion of the world production possibly greater than that devoted to human consumption is used as feed for stock, and indicates some of the byproducts that have been made from the potato, such as starch, dextrins, acetone, alcohol, and alcoholic beverages, and its use as a starting point for the production of synthetic rubber. Salaman.stresses the value of the potato in wartime, stating that it was hardly second to wheat as a

The History and Social Influence of the Potato.

Reality, it seems, is not what it used to be in international relations. In recent times many of the givens of the postwar world have undergone remarkable and often dramatic change. In the Gorbachev era, for example, ideologies have been reordered, boundaries redrawn, alliances reconstituted, new symbols of identification constructed and old identities resurrected. Recently, also, patterns of thought and behaviour, deemed to correspond with an enduring, essential reality in international life have come under increasing scrutiny within the international relations community. Accordingly, in the United States in particular, a new critical literature has emerged concerned to confront intellectual and policy sectors with the limitations, omissions, silences and givens of conventional approaches to international relations at a historical moment resonant with old dangers and unique opportunities. This paper represents a brief introduction to an Australian audience of some of the issues associated with this new l...

Some thoughts on the ‘givenness of everyday life’ in Australian international relations: Theory and practice

Why do American perspectives of international relations (IR) continue to hold sway over an increasingly diverse discipline? What actually constitutes “Americanness” in IR? Who is considered “American” in IR? These are the central questions we explore in this essay. Drawing on cognitive and behavioral insights from social psychology, we argue that there is a distinct “American approach” to international relations and security studies and that this approach is a product of Western cognitive frames. We identify three factors that represent the American approach's hyper-Westernized framing: individualism, equality, and a preference for causal rather than contextual analysis, and a preference for egalitarianism. We argue that these are reinforced by two social identity processes—academic identity and national identity. The consequences of “being American” in IR and security studies suggest not only problems of attention and accuracy, but an inherent failure to appreciate that Western—and particularly, American—ways of seeing and valuing the world are not universal.

/pdf/how-cognitive-frameworks-shape-the-american-approach-to-34izinm9ut.pdf

How Cognitive Frameworks Shape the American Approach to International Relations and Security Studies

The Maori military campaign against British forces in the New Zealand Wars has been described as” on the extant record, a unique feat of resistance to nineteenth-century European expansion” (Belich 1988). Maori have strong claims to world-historical distinction in the food area as well: a long struggle to grow a subtropical sweet potato staple in a cool-temperate environment before European contact, and a remarkably rapid adoption of the white potato after its introduction by European explorers around 1770. The links between these two areas of Maori distinctiveness have not yet been systematically explored and the Maori “tale of two potatoes” has received surprisingly little attention in the specialist food literature. This paper attempts to foreground the relationship between Maori food systems and Maori warfare and show that using food as a starting point can lead to a more socially-embedded understanding of Maori military achievements in the New Zealand Wars.

The Columbian Exchange and the Two Colonizations of Aotearoa New Zealand

The Anglo‐American school of international relations: The tyranny of a‐historical culturalism

(1992). Rights of nations or entitlements of international society? Asian Studies Review: Vol. 16, No. 1, pp. 15-26.

John Fitzpatrick

Papers

The Columbian Exchange and the Two Colonizations of Aotearoa New Zealand

The Anglo‐American school of international relations: The tyranny of a‐historical culturalism

Rights of nations or entitlements of international society

The geopolitics of the Garnaut Report