Why Early Globalization Matters: Crash Course Big History #206

Globalization has been in process for centuries, and has had a huge effect on Big History, and on Collective Learning. This week, Emily is investigating early globalization through three things that moved around the world and shaped collective learning in the early decades of globalization: Printing, Potatoes, and Plagues.

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[edibleapeman]

I could not be more in love with an entire series.

[Gguy]

John Green might as well be the one presenting every video on crash course, because every host annunciates and structures the flow of their speaking just like he does.

[IrfanAli-xhyp]

Wondering if there are citiations or sources we could use for further research. Please help.

[TheAutobotPower]

...And everything changed when the European Nations attacked.

[AbbreviatedReviews]

It's really weird to me that people subscribe to this channel just to give a thumbs down to anything with at title that sounds vaguely like something they disagree with, without even watching the video.

[theworldeatswithyou]

Stan at the edutainment panel was pretty cool.

[tobbe]

GUYS TAKE IT EASY SHE IS TALKING ABOUT POTATOES NOT THE ROTHSCHILDS !

[StepBackHistory]

There was a mention that the potato was domesticated in mesoamerica first, but my research, and even later in this video seems to show that it was south america. Is there a source I don't know about?

[barbarianjk]

Hi! There's a mistake in the video. Potatoes were domesticated in the Andes, not in Mesoamerica. It'd have been a chance to mention that other cultural area as well, which I see is often ignored or left aside.

[shiftees]

Can you feel the repercussions of a missed opportunity?

[warcraftnut]

You said Mongols and there was no montage! I feel it should've been put in.

[talideon]

Regarding the Great Famine, as it's known here in Ireland, it's worth noting _why_ such a reliance happened in the first place:

Irish peasant farmers were effectively serfs, and were only allowed to farm crops and raise livestock that were not wanted for export, and even then only to the extent that they didn't negatively impact the profits of the landlord. The Lumper was an extraordinarily good potato, giving excellent crop yields on even very marginal land, and as potatoes are almost a complete food, when supplemented by other traditional staples such as buttermilk, bacon, and cabbage, lead to a healthy population, _in spite of_ the conditions they had to live in. IIRC, Irish people were, at the time, some of the tallest people in Europe.

Of course, this health in spite of circumstances, masked a timebomb. When the blight hit, it hit hardest in Ireland. The British government at the time wasn't solely to blame. In fact, I'd put a lot of the blame within the British government at the feet of Sir Charles Trevelyan, who regarded the famine as '[an] effective mechanism for reducing surplus population'. Keep in mind that, at the time, the population of the island of Ireland was half that of England, whereas it is now 1/8 the size. He certainly achieved his wishes.

Added to that, and arguably as culpable, where the landlords, who didn't want to divert profitable crops to feed the very people farming those crops for them. Right throughout the famine, Ireland was still the UK's bread basket.

[joshuacook]

For as broad of a subject as it is, they took a very nuanced approach to globalization. Lots of good stuff, and a few major hurdles and dangers.

[FlagstaffBiker]

Is this the end of the series? We are going on 6 weeks without a new episode, last gap was ~2 weeks. I'm enjoying this return to the big history ideas, please keep it alive.

[StepBackHistory]

A great book for reading more on this is Charles Mann's 1493

[auroraborealis]

Never heard that theory of the Chinese discovering the Americas, very interesting. I'd be interested in seeing more evidence.

[BrettGA]

My favorite of these yet! Thanks Emily!

[OnkelJajusBahn]

Very interresting video, I love how unbiased, well researched, interresting and packed with new information it is. Thanks, keep up your great work. This is definitely a good side of globalization, that I can watch videos from America here in Austria.

[homeycdawg]

I think we're at or near the peak of our ability to globally communicate, considering we have small devices in our pockets that allow us to instantly communicate with people literally anywhere on Earth.

Now if we could just grow up enough to be able to globally communicate without it always devolving into a name calling contest. Hopefully we'll see more large social media platforms in the future that aren't designed specifically to be gossip propagation machines like our current ones.

[annarose]

Plagues wiped out huge numbers of indigenous people here in Aus too