The secret fuel of empires

This is a clip from David Elikwu’s conversation with Charles C. Mann on 📙The Knowledge Podcast 🎙️
—
David speaks with Charles C. Mann, a journalist and author, specializing in scientific topics. He is the author of the bestselling books 1491, which won the National Academies Communication Award for Best Book of the Year, 1493, and The Wizard and the Prophet. He is the co-author of four books, and contributing editor for Science, The Atlantic Monthly, and Wired.

They talked about:
**📚** The Columbian Exchange
🌎 How European diseases conquered the New World
🌾 How crops fuelled human conquest
♻️ Environmental limits and human innovation
🌱 The fragility of ecosystems
🌐 The future of sustainability

📜 Full transcript:

👤 Connect with Charles:
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👨🏾‍💻 About David Elikwu:
David Elikwu FRSA is a serial entrepreneur, strategist, and writer. David is the founder of The Knowledge, a platform helping people think deeper and work smarter.
🐣 Twitter: @Delikwu / @itstheknowledge
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"Europe never been able to feed themselves?" In which planet do you live?

[Cupid_Stunt]

As an Englishman living amongst the most fertile land on the planet, I find this amusing.

[geroldglocker]

has this man never heard of hungary, romania, poland, on what planet does he live on?

[Dabhach]

Yeah, the Irish Empire straddled three quarters of the Earth's surface because of the potato.

[Westvlet]

Europe has never managed to feed themselves and it cold.. 😂

[mr.d.]

Roman Empire 625 BC -AD 476 Potato arrives in Europe 16th century..

[neverstopschweiking]

Literally nothing he said is true or anywhere close to reality. Europe fed itself for millennia. Today, it exports much more food than it imports and a lot of that export is grain.

[MrLisborg]

Vikings did just survive on eating rocks, dirt and fish

[coinopanimator]

What happens in the UK or England more precisely is we ran out of trees and the (country/king) just borrowed so much money they couldn't pay it back - or didn't want to. So yeah they had to get it from somewhere.

[arthur-yqic]

after i ate fries i have the urge to conquer
now i know why
thanks

[LukaszCantwell]

Sweet potato is south pacific, Papua New Guinea and the Maori took them to New Zealand eight hundred years ago.
But it could be from south America as well
Newcastle Australia 🦘🦘🦘🦘🦘🦘🦘🦘🦘🦘🦘🦘🦘🦘🦘🦘🦘🦘🦘🦘

[zapfanzapfan]

Potatoes didn't get wide spread in Europe until late 1700s...

[kaukase]

Europe didn’t touch potatoes the first 100 years. They didn’t like it

[pavelgl]

Potatoes are the fuel of expansionism :D

[OptimusPrime-]

I didn't think of it like that, basically potatos and europeans were a match made in heaven

[invino]

Dude forgetting how the potatoe got to Europe in the first place 😂

[MJA]

My god, continent that has the most arable land in the world cant feed itself.

[Arltratlo]

the USA must have great potatoes....
they cant survive without constant wars

[nofeerz]

Also they grow underground so w war and scorched earth tactics there was still food available

[mrkehro]

Europe has one of the best Soils to grow food in the world and perfect climate, dfq is this guy talking about LOL