My other big 2009 project

Aside from my food book, the project that has consumed most of my mental bandwidth this year has been my special report on telecoms in emerging markets, which is published in The Economist today, and is on the cover everywhere except Britain. The accompanying cover article highlights what I think is the most exciting aspect of the report: the potential for mobile money to trigger a second wave of economic development in poor countries, as big as the one caused by the initial introduction of mobile phones. In addition to the cover leader and the 14-page report, there’s also an audio interview in which I summarise the main themes, and a videographic that picks out some of the figures about telecommunications technologies and their impact on development. Yup, it’s a multimedia extravaganza.

You have to fight your way through to the end of the report before you get to the inevitable telegraph reference; it’s actually in the last paragraph. My point: that the project to connect everyone on earth to a single communications network, which began with the invention of the telegraph in 1791, is on the verge of completion. Within a decade, it’s likely that everyone who wants a mobile phone will have one. The next step will be to make access to the internet just as universal.

Being able to write a special report like this is one of the best things about working at The Economist. We usually get five weeks off to do it, a generous travel budget, and 14 pages in which to lay out our arguments. (It’s also the only time we get a byline.) I took three weeks off to do this report — one was spent doing reporting in Uganda, and the other two were spent writing at home — but I’ve actually been researching it pretty intensively since the start of the year. It’s like doing a small book. And as with a book, it’s great to see it finally emerge into the world.

Invisible hands, forks… and hooks?

In his book “The Wealth of Nations”, first published in 1776, Adam Smith famously likened the unseen influence of market forces, acting on participants who are all looking out for their own best interests, to an invisible hand. In “An Edible History of Humanity”, I liken food’s influence on history to an invisible fork that has, at several crucial points in history, prodded humanity and altered its destiny, even though people were generally unaware of its influence at the time. And I have just learned (rather belatedly, because I have something of a New Yorker backlog at the moment) of Peter Leeson’s new book “The Invisible Hook: The Hidden Economics of Pirates” which, according to this New Yorker review, explains pirate customs and behaviour using economic analysis. (It’s based on an academic paper from 2007 on pirate economics.) It sounds great.

More “Edible History” coverage

It’s been a bit quiet around here lately, in part because I’ve been in rural Uganda researching mobile phones. It was also a good opportunity to see subsistence farming close up, and find out what farmers in the developing world are doing on the ground. Anyway, in the past month the Los Angeles Times has run a Q&A with me in which I am described, strangely, as “the ultimate foodie”. Time Out picked “Edible History” as one of its “best new food books”. The Guardian ran a favourable review. The Daily Telegraph picked up the “farming was a big mistake” discussion. The Financial Times included the book in its “hottest holiday reading” selection.

I also wrote an Op-Ed for the Los Angeles Times, drawing parallels between 18th-century concerns about the potato and modern worries about genetically modified crops. Yup, historical analogy again. There was one point I didn’t have room for, which is worth mentioning. I am in favour of GM in theory although, as I note in the piece, so far the technology has not really delivered the goods in practice. That said, I think one of the risks of an over-reliance on GM is that monocultures are vulnerable to the appearance of an unexpected disease or predator. The Irish Potato Famine is, of course, the single best example of the danger of monocultures in food history. So that’s another lesson from the history of the potato.

How can we learn from it? What we need is lots of different GM crops to provide variety, rather than dominance of a few strains from a couple of big companies. And there’s no reason, as I point out, why future GM crops might not come from government research labs, which could do a lot to neutralise anti-capitalist opposition to GM. If the government of Mexico or India, say, produces a GM wheat that is drought-tolerant and requires very little fertiliser or pesticide, gives away the seeds to farmers and allows them to reuse seeds from one year to the next, wouldn’t that be a good thing?

Food and drink, continued

This has got to be the most unusual book review I’ve ever had: Paco Calderón, a Mexican cartoonist, has reviewed “A History of the World in 6 Glasses” in the form of a cartoon (left). As an occasional cartoonist myself, I think this is an excellent use of the art form.

Meanwhile, I am still on the road promoting “An Edible History of Humanity” with various personal appearances and radio interviews. This week I was on NPR’s Talk of the Nation, and I was also interviewed by NPR affiliate KUOW in Seattle, in a wide-ranging conversation that also covered some of my other books.

While on tour I have been doing a fair amount of culinary tourism. In San Francisco I visited TCHO to pick up some chocolate (I wrote a story about the company last year), and went to Ritual Coffee Roasters to try coffee made with a Clover machine. I had a cup of Fazenda Kaquend, the winner of the Brazil Cup of Excellence competition. Normally I put sugar in my coffee to take the edge off it, but there was not a hint of bitterness. In Berkeley I had ice cream at Ici, which was also excellent. But I have to admit that my favourite discovery was that Anchor Liberty Ale was available on tap at SFO. It is my favourite beer. I am now in Iowa. Time for some corn.

UPDATE June 6th: After an on-stage conversation about my book at the Printers Row Literary Festival in Chicago with Mike Gebert of food blog Sky Full of Bacon, I asked Mike for a lunch suggestion, and we ended up going to Frontera Grill. Chef Rick Bayless is the dean of “white table-cloth Mexican food”, apparently. We had ceviche and tostaditas, after which I had poached eggs with masa boats, black beans and crumbled chorizo. With some Goose Island “Summertime” beer. A delicious and suitably American end to my tour. Thanks, Mike!

“Edible History” on tour

I’m now on the road in America for 10 days promoting “An Edible History of Humanity”. The tour kicked off last night with a very elaborate launch party at Bouley organised by The Economist (thanks, everyone!). I explained how the potato famine overturned the Corn Laws in the 1840s (which The Economist was founded to campaign against), thus cementing Britain’s transition from an agricultural to an industrial economy. Chef David Bouley (left) provided some astonishing food (I loved the black cod buried under a layer of powdered black onion) and foodie tales (including one about a legendary sushi restaurant in Tokyo with only two tables). Today I’m at BookExpo America 2009, speaking on a panel about the future of publishing with Chris Anderson, Steven Johnson and Lev Grossman. The rest of the tour looks like this:

May 31st, 3pm: Reading at Mrs Dalloways, 2904 College Avenue, Berkeley

May 31st, 6pm: Reading at Green Arcade, 1680 Markert Street, San Francisco

June 1st, 7.30pm: Reading at Bookshop Santa Cruz, 1520 Pacific Ave, Santa Cruz

June 2nd, 3pm: Signing at Omnivore Books, 3885 Cesar Chavez St, San Francisco

June 2nd, 6pm: Reading at Book Passage, Ferry Building, San Francisco

June 3rd, 3.30pm: Reading at Microsoft Campus, Redmond

June 3rd, 7pm: Reading at University Book Store, 4326 University Way NE, Seattle

June 4th, 7.30pm: Reading at Magers and Quinn, 3038 Hennepin Avenue S, Minneapolis

June 5th, 7pm: Reading at Prairie Lights, 15 South Duboque Street, Iowa City

June 6th, 10.30am: Discussion at Printers Row Literary Festival, University Center, Chicago

More “Edible History” reviews

There have been more reviews of “An Edible History of Humanity” in the Financial Times, Scotland on Sunday, the Toronto Star and the National. As a result I was asked to go on the BBC Radio 4 “Today” programme. This  pushed the book to #68 on Amazon.co.uk — not that I am checking obsessively, you understand.

It also prompted a rather odd editorial from the Guardian, which seems to think that I am opposed to agriculture in all its forms (when I am, in fact, merely interested in why anybody originally adopted it, given the relative drawbacks of farming compared with hunting and gathering). Jared Diamond, among others, has argued that the adoption of agriculture was the worst mistake in the history of the human race. It’s a convincing argument, when you compare the lifestyles of hunter-gatherers with those of early farmers. But agriculture is, of course, the basis of civilization as we know it. So we can hardly object — particularly those of us who live in industrialised societies, the very definition of which is that most people are no longer farmers. Living in the rich world, as I do, I can safely say that agriculture is a good thing. People trapped in a life of subsistence agriculture in the developing world may well feel otherwise, however, and might well agree with Diamond.

“Edible History” published this week

My new book, “An Edible History of Humanity”, was published on May 12th in Britain and America. It has already been reviewed in New Scientist and the Sunday Times. And there’s an interview with me about the book over at gourmet.com, accompanied by a rather terrifying picture of me eating a scone at Fortnum & Mason. Not a pretty sight. Click at your peril.

First reviews of “An Edible History of Humanity”

 

The first reviews of “An Edible History of Humanity” have appeared in Kirkus Reviews and the Library Journal. There have also been some early reader reviews from Amazon and BookBrowse. The book is out on May 12th in Britain and America.

Kirkus Reviews: Society is what it eats. That’s the contention of Economist business editor Standage (A History of the World in Six Glasses, 2005, etc.). Writers have given close scrutiny to the histories of individual foods, cuisines and traditions, he notes, but have rarely looked at the history of food on a global scale. That’s why he decided to write this meaty little volume, which “concentrates specifically on the intersections between food history and world history.” Tapping into fields as diverse as economics, anthropology, archaeology and genetics, the author asks a simple question: Which foods have had the most influence on shaping the world we live in today? Surprisingly, the list is short; corn, wheat, rice and the potato have been predominant in agriculture and commerce. But history isn’t Standage’s only concern. He takes the long view to illuminate and contextualize such contemporary issues as genetically modified foods, the complex relationship between food and poverty, the local food movement, the politicization of food and the environmental outcomes of modern methods of agriculture. It’s a tall order, impressively filled. Food was pivotal in the creation of social hierarchies in prehistoric cultures. It was central to the spread of European colonial powers. The Industrial Revolution sprang from concerns over food. The Soviet Union collapsed because food was running out. Advancements in biotechnology have proved a double-edged sword—a boon to the hungry and a bane to the environment. Written in the lucid, plain and rather stiff prose familiar to readers of the Economist, the book, like the magazine, is cogent, informative and insightful. An intense briefing on the making of our world from the vantage point of food history.

Library Journal: Standage’s previous book, A History of the World in 6 Glasses , theorized that the titular six drinks were reflections of the eras in which they were created. In this new work, he instead shows how one of humanity’s most vital needs (hunger) didn’t simply reflect but served as the driving force behind transformative and key events in history. Dividing the vast subject into six general sections (such as food’s role in the development of societies and social hierarchies, its impact on population and industrialization, and its uses as a weapon both on the battlefield and off), Standage illustrates each section with historical examples and observations. Some topics, like the spice trade’s encouragement of exploration, are fairly obvious choices, but the concise style and inclusion of little-known details keep the material both entertaining and enlightening. Perhaps the most interesting section is the final one, which looks at the ways in which modern agricultural needs have acted as a spur for technological advancement, with Standage providing a summary of the challenges still faced by the green revolution. Recommended for both public and academic libraries.

The internet threatens newspapers — in 1845

Digging around in an online archive of old American newspapers, I came upon an article entitled “The Electro Magnetic Telegraph — A Great Revolution Approaching” from the New York Herald, published on May 12th, 1845. I quoted some of it in The Victorian Internet, but re-reading it I was struck by how closely it reflects what is happening today, and I think it’s worth quoting at greater length:

If this mode of transmitting intelligence fully succeeds and comes into universal operation — as no doubt it will — an entire revolution in many of the present institutions and elements of society will be effected.

In regard to the newspaper press, it will experience to a degree, that must in a vast number of cases be fatal, the effects of the new mode of circulating intelligence. The telegraph may not affect magazine literature, nor those newspapers that have some peculiar characteristic. But the mere newspapers — the circulators of intelligence merely — must submit to destiny, and go out of existence. That journalism, however, which possesses intellect, mind and originality, will not suffer. Its sphere of action will be widened. It will, in fact, be more influential than ever. The public mind will be stimulated to greater activity by the rapid circulation of news. The swift communication of tidings of great events will awake in the masses of the community still keener interest in public affairs. Thus the intellectual, philosophic and original journalist, will have a greater, a more excited, and more thoughtful audience than ever.

This prediction was wrong, of course. The telegraph did not destroy newspapers — it provided them instead with a vast new supply of information. It became worthwhile to produce several editions of a newspaper a day. If there was a fast-moving story, people might buy more than one paper a day. The telegraph was great at delivering news, but it could not deliver it directly to subscribers, since it was an expensive, hard-to-use point-to-point medium. So the telegraph actually strengthened the newspapers’ existing business model, which was to aggregate news for readers, and  readers for advertisers.

Today the problem for the newspapers is that the modern-day telegraph, the internet, does undermine their model, because it’s easy to use and ubiquitous. Indeed, the newspapers have been undermining it themselves by making their content available free online, where there are fewer advertising dollars available. In recent days there has been a lot of fuss about whether newspapers should deny news aggregator sites, such as Google News and Digg, the right to link to their stories. As many observers have pointed out, but very few newspaper bosses seem to have realised, this would be idiotic, because aggregators drive a lot of traffic to news sites. Having fewer readers would hardly improve matters; what is needed is a new business model. I think newspapers will have to start charging for their content in some form, and that will be easier to do if they have something distinctive to offer. But many newspapers have been going the other way, following the herd and rewriting wire copy in response to what seems to be popular on Digg or the Drudge Report.

The article from 1845 had it right. Newspapers “that have some peculiar characteristic” (such as the Wall Street Journal, which does charge readers) will be better positioned. And journalism “which possesses intellect, mind and originality, will not suffer.” Of course, I’d like to think that applies to The Economist, which has just had a bumper year, and is generally doing well. The gloomy prediction of the death of “mere newspapers” at the hands of new technology turned out to be wrong in 1845, but seems to be coming true 164 years later.

Best guesses on iPhone 3.0

Apple is holding an event on March 17th to preview features in its forthcoming iPhone 3.0 software. Presumably some of these features will be made available on existing iPhones via a software upgrade; but there may also be new features that depend on hardware in the next-generation iPhone handset, expected this summer. So we may get some clues about future hardware.

First, the easy stuff. A lot of people think Apple will add MMS support (which would be very simple; MMS is really e-mail under the hood). Also expected are cut-and-paste and “push” notification for third-party apps, which would allow Facebook and other apps to receive updates even when they are not running. Both of these features have already been hinted at, and partly implemented, by Apple. All this could easily be added to existing phones as a software upgrade. So too could internet tethering, though carriers might want to charge extra for that. I’m not expecting video recording to be added to existing phones; to do video efficiently you need special hardware to do the compression, which I assume isn’t present in existing handsets. Besides, that’s an obvious feature (along with a better camera, with autofocus) to add to a new iPhone handset this summer.

What I’ll really be looking out for, however, are two changes to the software that would tell us about Apple’s hardware plans. One is the ability to run apps in the background, and switch between multiple running apps. The second is the requirement that apps support arbitrary screen sizes. This would pave the way for a new, cheaper iPhone model, perhaps with a slightly smaller screen; and for a larger iPod touch, which might be Apple’s entry in the netbook category (iPad?).

This week I spoke to someone closely involved with a big Asian mobile-phone operator, who said the next iPhone was going to be much cheaper, which would allow operators to offer it at a lower price. In the case of the iPod, Apple introduced a smaller, cheaper model alongside it, so it wouldn’t be a surprise if it did the same with the iPhone. Also this week there were reports that Apple had ordered a large number of 10-inch touch-screens, which triggered a lot of speculation about netbooks. I think Apple is going to offer a large iPod touch, rather than a laptop-style device, in this category. It would be different and distinctive. You wouldn’t be able to author documents on it very easily (not without the option of a Bluetooth keyboard, at least) but it would be great for web-browsing on the sofa. The addition of cut-and-paste and multitasking would make such a product much more credible as a netbook alternative. It would also make an ideal e-book reader, of course.

The state of affairs with the iPhone today is rather like that of the Mac in 1985: all Macs were the same, with the same processor speed and screen size. Then the Mac II was announced, which could support bigger screens and colour, followed by MultiFinder, which allowed Macs to run more than one application at once. I think we’re about to see the same transition with the iPhone architecture. To give app developers time to tweak their code, Apple needs to announce this in advance, so that the software is ready when the new devices ship. Hence this week’s announcement. Roll on Tuesday!

* Post-Tuesday update: Yes, iPhone 3.0 will have MMS, cut and paste, and possibly tethering if Apple can sort things out with the operators. There will also be background notification, but not full multitasking. It will be easier to sell things through apps (such as e-books and magazine subscriptions — let’s see how quickly Kindle adds those). But there was no indication about new hardware. This doesn’t rule anything out, but it suggests that the next iPhone handset will either be an incremental upgrade — or that its new features will rely more on new hardware than new software that developers have to prepare for (eg, a better camera with video and/or autofocus).