100 Million Years of Food

Title: 100 Million Years of Food – What Our Ancestors Ate and Why It Matters Today

Author: Stephen Le

Publisher: Picador, 2016 (First)

ISBN: 9781250050410

Pages: 309

While it is undeniable that human health is in its most marvelous phase ever in its history, it is really hard to come across a person entirely satisfied about his state of health. Awareness and the tons of information on ailments reaching the common man has helped to ward off diseases, but the apprehensions about newer and stranger diseases keep the society on tenterhooks. As I write these words, the South Indian state of Kerala is in the throes of a battle against a previously unheard of viral disease caused by a kind of deadly pathogen known as the Nipah virus. Sometimes, the food we eat also forms the channel through which harmful bacteria and viruses reach our body. Even if we lay aside the menace of microbes for the time being, it is arguable whether we keep a healthy diet. With the changes in habitat and lifestyles, most people follow a diet that is greatly at odds with that of their ancestors. Also, the cherished notions about food and nutrition often turn out to be wrong when viewed in a broad context. This book is a valiant effort to reach an understanding of what our ancestors – not all of them humans, of course – ate in the last 100 million years of evolutionary history. It explains what we should eat and how we should lead our lives by combining the latest in scientific studies with a dose of evolutionary biology and a review of how people past and present ate and lived. It offers practical suggestions for tweaking the ancestral habits and inserting them into our daily lives to avoid or delay the onset of major chronic diseases. Stephen Le is currently a visiting professor of biology at the University of Ottawa. He received Ph.D in biological anthropology in 2010 and is an ethnic Vietnamese settled in Canada.

The eating habits of our primate ancestors underwent dramatic changes as a result of minor upsets in the genomic roadmap. Around 60 million years ago, our primate forebears lost the ability to synthesize vitamin C due to a genetic mutation in a single gene called GLO. They tided over this handicap by taking to fruits rich in the vitamin and were abundantly available in the surroundings. Similarly, between 40 and 16 million years ago, our ancestors progressively lost the genes for building uricase, the enzyme helping to dispose of uric acid from the body. As a result, uric acid levels in primates rose 3-10 times higher than other mammals, which however helped them to store fat, particularly after eating fruit.

The book repeatedly handles the pros and cons of eating liberal quantities of meat and dairy products. Meat is the greatest source of protein and in the long history of food, our affection for fruit pales in comparison to our affinity for meat. However, choosing an unusually large slice of meat comes with its own problems. Humans can’t consume more than 35-40% of calories in the form of protein due to the accumulation of toxic levels of ammonia and urea as byproducts of digesting and metabolizing protein. Fat and carbohydrates thus provide the bulk of calories needed by us. Stephen Le’s assertion that vegetables are not our original food source may surprise ardent Vegs, but he explains it why. Humans don’t have the specialized digestive systems or teeth that herbivores like guerillas or cows possess to grind and digest large quantities of unprocessed plant foods. The author shocks dairy enthusiasts as well with his prescient remark that compared to milk, alcohol is child’s play. In fact, milk is the most complex substance people consume.

Over the eons, our diet shifted from insects to fruits, meat, agricultural products like wheat, rice, potatoes and corn and then to milk and alcohol. Modern societies consume all these different genera of foods, but we are still unsure about what constitutes an optimal diet. Le asks rhetorically whether a healthy man in a great mood and being fertile and stronger at a younger age is to be emulated than another healthy old man delaying cancer for a couple of years and hanging out with his great-grandchildren. The book contains many good chapters on the tinkering required in diet for a healthy life. Calorie restriction is a good method for longer life, but studies point out that the calorie intake of modern people is much the same as primitive hunter gatherers. But the latter were slim and fit while the former fights a losing battle with obesity. The fraction of obese people as a proportion of the whole goes steadily up in every society. Le surmises that our voluntary inactivity may be the key to our expanding waistlines. Watching TV and indiscriminate usage of automobiles to cover even short distances are killing us slowly. To make his point, Le visits Ikaria in Greece and Okinawa in Japan to showcase the efficacy of long walks which are mandated by the geography of these islands. Anyhow, the traditional diets are fast receding into oblivion in these places too.

The book’s moral is easily evident as it is reiterated many times in the text. To lead a healthy and longer life, we need to practice exercises of moderate physical activity, adhere to traditional cuisines, and eat more animal foods when older. Going after traditional diets forces the author to hunt for restaurants that serve such bizarre fare as insects and crickets in Southeast Asia.

What is disappointing in the book is its painfully evident bias towards unscientific fads of modern society such as organic farming and mindless opposition to genetically modified (GM) foods. Of course, this is not the place for a full discussion of the pros and cons of organic farming and avoidance of chemical pesticides, but it is fairly obvious that the organic movement is not going to be good for the food security of the world in the longer term. Having lower crop yields, organic farming is a wasteful exercise that squanders precious resources such as land, seeds, water, manure and manpower. This is especially significant when the supposed ill-effects of scientific agriculture using chemical fertilizers and judicious use of pesticides are nowhere to be found. Le advocates ban on the use of genetically modified foods till more tests on its long-term safety are conducted. This is a self-defeating argument. How can you test them if you ban it outright and continue to arraign it in the media and every available forum? Europe keeps them at arm’s length while America continues to enjoy its varied flavours. So, a definitive answer to this puzzle might not be long in coming after all, when we learn that 93 per cent of soy, 90 per cent of corn, 95 per cent of sugar beet, 93 per cent of rape seed and 30 per cent of alfalfa crops in US and Canada are already GM. In order not to scare away customers, the manufacturers prefer not to indicate this fact on the product package. The book’s unsubstantiated attack on MSG (monosodium glutamate) is unscientific as the perceived after effects of consuming it is both fanciful and unproven. Le claims that German researchers have found that MSG can cause headaches (!) when ingested in large quantities! Is it such a big deal? Le admits that scientists and mainstream media discuss MSG concerns as uninformed public hysteria.

The first part of the book is very witty when we follow the author travelling to many remote parts of the globe in search of novel foods and read about pleasing adventures. After the first few chapters, the narrative loses focus and degenerates to the level of a dietary and health handbook. This book is not a record of the varied culinary stages through which human societies reached where they are today, but rather on what they should eat for better health. It impels the readers to follow sustainable farming practices that do not snatch food away from the plates of future generations.

The book is recommended.

Rating: 3 Star

The Square and the Tower

Title: The Square and the Tower – Networks, Hierarchies and the Struggle for Global Power

Author: Niall Ferguson

Publisher: Allen Lane, 2017 (First)

ISBN: 9780241298985

Pages: 574

The social structures that we see around us today are the result of incessant interactions between human beings. When people interact with each other, some etiquette is required to be maintained. The inter-personal relationships in an organization can be hard or soft as demanded by the purpose for which the people have joined it. These associations between people can be broadly classified into two – networks and hierarchies. Being a member of a network gives influence to an affiliate while a hierarchy imparts power to its constituents. If you ‘report’ to someone, you are in a hierarchy. From the very beginnings of civilizations, networks and hierarchies exerted their push and pull on the way history flowed. This book tells the story of the interaction between networks and hierarchies from ancient times until the very recent past. Niall Ferguson is a British historian and commentator, and is currently a senior research fellow at Jesus College, Oxford. He is known for his provocative, contrarian views. Many of Ferguson’s books have been reviewed here earlier. In 2004, he was named as one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine.

Networks and hierarchies enjoyed a commingled role in shaping events that turned the wheels of world history. The recurrent and near universal problem of ancient history was that the citizens of warring states generally ceded excessive powers to hereditary warrior elites whose function it was to inculcate religious doctrines and other legitimizing ideas. At times, the hierarchy was essential to move forward out of a vexing problem or simply to survive. Ferguson credits the invention of the printing press as the most influential single event that altered the course of history. Printing helped to unleash the huge political and religious disruption of the Reformation. Gutenberg’s movable type technology came around 1450 CE. This revolutionized the way information reached people, helping to establish countless networks in every sphere of human activity. Without Gutenberg, Luther might well have become just another heretic whom the Church burned at the stake. With the advent of cheap paper, more of the populace joined intellectual discourses of the era. Cities with at least one printing press in 1500 CE were significantly more likely to adopt Protestantism than cities without printing. This new technology also helped the scientific revolution and Enlightenment. After Luther’s Reformation, Protestant states began to show signs of greater economic dynamism. Re-allocation of resources from ecclesiastical to secular activities loosened the reins held by the clergy. Two-thirds of all monasteries were closed in Protestant territories of Germany. Their land and other assets were appropriated by secular rulers and sold to wealthy subjects. It was how the Reformation, in itself a religious movement, contributed to Europe’s secularization.

Popular fiction is rife with conspiracy theories and secret societies. ‘Illuminati’ is at the centre stage of Dan Brown’s immensely popular thriller ‘Angels and Demons’. We are surprised to learn that a society of that name indeed existed in Europe before the French revolution. Another favourite gang of best sellers are the Freemasons, whose members are said to have been administering all major governments and organizations in the world. Freemasonry furnished the Age of Reason with a powerful mythology, an international organization structure and an elaborate ritual calculated to bind initiates together as metaphorical brothers. Freemasons participated in America’s revolutionary war, but it is not correct to assign it the credit of victory.

A major portion of the book is dedicated to networks and hierarchies that dominated the political arena in the twentieth century such as communism, fascism, Nazism, Islamism and others. The author presents some new ideas on German wartime strategy during World War 1. They fanned Islamic fundamentalism to cause internal strife in British colonies such as India which were at war with Germany. This aspect requires more study for students of the Indian independence movement. Unlike in the Second, Indians wholeheartedly sided with Britain in the First World War without making any preconditions on self-rule. Indian troops served exemplarily in the War. Even then, disturbances were breaking out in many parts of India. The downfall of the Ottoman sultan infuriated radical Muslims who viewed the sultan as the Leader of the Faithful. Incitement from Germans made rebels out of the Muslims and young revolutionaries like the Gadar movement. The spiral of violence gained strength by each passing day and went out of control at JallianwalaBagh. Ferguson sets aside a chapter that narrates the strategic German actions in India and the Middle East to foment jihadism. I haven’t come across any other book that deals with the post-World War 1 insurrections in India and the role Germany played in it.

A shocking revelation given in the book is the support extended by Kaiser's Germany to elevate Lenin as the ruler of Russia by usurping Tsar Nicholas II who was locked in a war with them in World War 1. Lenin was exiled by the Tsarist regime earlier and was residing quietly in Switzerland. Germany transferred 50 million gold marks ($800 million in today's money) to Lenin and his associates - much of it laundered through a Russian import business run by a woman named Evgeniya Sumenson. Kerensky's provisional government in Russia was too lenient and not competent enough to tackle the Red menace. Had he imprisoned Lenin and his comrades the moment they arrived in Russian soil, the famed October Revolution would've been stillborn. Lenin and Stalin didn't repeat Kerensky's mistakes though. The large-scale repressive state organs they instituted spied on the Russian people and punished them harshly for even the smallest misdemeanors. It is estimated that if we include the exiled people into reckoning, the share of the population who experienced some kind of penal servitude under Stalin approached 15 per cent of the total. The Bolshevik Revolution was hence a successful German plot to subvert Russia that came to haunt them and prove to be their nemesis in the Second World War. Such hidden truths are hard to come by in today's society dominated by the so called 'Left-leaning Liberals'.

The book is rather very big, but a sense of pointlessness pervades it all. Of course, man is a social animal and social networks stay solidly behind any collective activity. In that sense, a history or commentary of such associations is by definition a history of mankind itself. The author introduces some new concepts such as betweenness centrality which finds significance in network analysis. He had included numerous network diagrams with multiple nodes, which are mostly unreadable and unappealing. Recent coverage in the book includes growth of the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq which follows a loosely interconnected network strategy rather than the top-down hierarchy of bin Laden's al-Qaeda.

The book is highly recommended.

Rating: 3 Star

Super Economies

Title: Super Economies – America, India, China & the Future of the World

Author: RaghavBahl

Publisher: Penguin Books, 2016 (First published 2015)

ISBN: 9780143426073

Pages: 392

Most of the twentieth century saw the cold war between two superpowers who tried to outsmart the other wherever they competed, such as finance, trade, business, sports or space. A string of states sharing ideological values aligned with them with no practical interactions across the battle lines. Geopolitical compulsions turned the table on the Communist bloc in the 1980s, bringing down the Berlin Wall and fall of the Soviet Union. The USA stood alone as the sole superpower of the world. There were people who predicted the ‘end of history’ at that point. But, the forces unleashed by American arms as a bulwark against Russian occupation in Afghanistan turned against their former masters. In a series of terrorist strikes against vulnerable American targets in the Middle East and Africa, Islamic terrorism engaged America’s strategic time and military muscle. Emboldened by weak and half-hearted countermeasures adopted by the West, al Qaeda struck at key US symbols of power on 9/11. The superpower awoke from its stupor and struck back hard at the terrorists in their Afghan strongholds and ensured a pliant regime in Iraq which housed one of the largest oil reserves in the world. However, the considerable financial drain caused by the two wars was straining the giant’s resources. The sub-prime mortgage crisis and consequent financial meltdown of 2008 stalled the growth of American economy. China, which was steadily growing after Deng Xiaoping’s reforms in 1978 and India that appeared on the scene with a litany of liberalization measures in 1991, grew by leaps and bounds. While America stagnated, India and China accelerated their pace to the level of super economies. Unlike isolation and strife, an extraordinary level of integration characterizes the age of Super Economies. The military was the most potent organ for superpowers while business and citizens engage the super economies. This book takes stock of the sum of interactions and interchange between the US, China and India, especially in the last three of four decades. Raghav Bahl is a journalist, entrepreneur, media baron and one of the most respected business leaders of India.

Bahl defines a super economy as a large and prosperous or prospering country that uses economic leadership to effect change in the world. It should also possess 15 to 20 per cent of global GDP or growing at or near double digits. BRICs countries qualify under this grouping whose growth pace quickened in the present century. Being an acronym for Brazil, Russia, India and China, BRICs are redefining the global political dynamics of the new century like US and the Soviet Union did in the twentieth. However, instead of the military that defined interactions between sovereign states in that era, it is the market which provides the staging ground for transnational aspirations. Jim O’Neill of Goldman Sachs coined the term BRICs after 9/11 attacks had inspired him to think up new ways about a developing world. The author goes on to analyze and compare the features of India and China that unifies them in some areas, while clearly differentiating in others. As can be expected, he finds India’s stature better choreographed and mature. Beijing’s motives and methods are said to be mystifying without transparency. It’s hard to know what it would do next: sack a popular leader, jail an artist, confront vessels in the South China Sea, exploit Africa’s resources, block the Internet, steal corporate secrets, arm rogue nations or further devalue the Yuan. Bahl argues for a tighter US-India alliance to help stabilize Asia and provide a political, military and economic counterweight to that uncertain force (p.18). This will help India end its neutrality of non-alignment. China doesn’t have any real allies as it follows a transactional diplomacy that promotes investing in emerging economies in exchange for access to natural resources or support at the UN.

India’s liberal democratic credentials lend it an undeniable appeal towards fellow democracies. The dynamic growth of these two large nations in Asia witnesses the coming together of a destiny that drove them forward four centuries ago. India and China accounted for half of world GDP in 1600 – 28 per cent for China and 23 for India. The comparison somewhat ends there, as the readers are surprised to learn the strict rules of censorship imposed on China’s intellectuals by the paranoia of the Communist party elite. Red-flag terms in Net searches include Taiwan, Dalai Lama, Tibet, Falun Gong, democracy activists and the 1989 Tiananmen massacre. Chinese university professors are instructed to avoid writing or speaking about seven specific subjects: universal values, freedom of the press, civil society, civil rights, an independent judiciary, elite cronyism, and the historical errors of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

Bahl gives a clean summary of US-Indian relations right from the period of independence struggle. As the candle-bearers of democracy and the right of self-determination to national societies, the US maintained a supportive stance towards India’s fight against their British masters. The relationship would’ve developed further had Nehru not antagonized them with his foreign policy which was a big folly. Nehru thought himself to be above the nation, and mistook his personal convictions to state policy. Even then, Nehru rushed with folded hands and a bent knee when China invaded India in 1962. Pakistan capitalized on the estrangement between US and India caused by Nehru’s socialist policy. On two more occasions they came in handy to fulfill America’s strategic interests – the first was when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan and the other was in 2001 when the US wiped Taliban out of power. After 2007, the relations between India and the US became quite cordial; America even entered into a nuclear deal with India though it still refused to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Bahl’s description of the frequently changing tone of the relationship is very appealing.

The book ends with optimism on the way forward under the leadership of Narendra Modi as India’s prime minister. In fact, the author compares him to Theodore Roosevelt of the US who reined in the robber barons of business. The book was published before Modi upset black money holders in the country with his demonetization of high-value bank notes in 2016. This too follows the hopeful prognosis Bahl prescribes for India. The growing Indian diaspora and the ease with which they get absorbed into the mainstream elicit kudos. There is a long chapter in which he appreciates the factors that help make Indians a successful society in the US.

The book is highly recommended.

Rating: 4 Star

Ancient Worlds

Title: Ancient Worlds – An Epic History of East and West

Author: Michael Scott

Publisher: Hutchinson London, 2016 (First)

ISBN: 9781786330567

Pages: 411

Modern man can travel a distance roughly 400 times more than that travelled by a person in the ancient world. This nullification of distance in terms of modes of travel and the ease of communication were brought about by great progress in science and technology witnessed in the last 300 years. The world is now tightly interconnected. Cataclysmic weather events that are supposedly plausible in one part of the globe by the mere flutter of a butterfly in another part of the world is of course a gross exaggeration, but it can’t be denied that man-made events in one region can affect the outcome in another. Used as we are to the instant nature of real-time communication, it might be hard for us to think about an era in which there were no long-distance telephony, mobile phones or the Internet. Yet, even in these primitive circumstances, human spirit and endeavour crossed deserts, scaled mountains and forded rivers to establish trade and cultural contacts with his fellow beings in other societies. The ouster of a rebel, or the invasion by a nomad tribe, or the civil war in a kingdom often gave rise to a chain reaction by migration, war or missionary work so as to alter the course of history in another kingdom. There are many books available which deals with the connected nature of the modern world, but very few that focuses on inter-civilization interactions in the ancient. This book is an excellent one on that thesis, covering the history of the world from early-sixth century BCE to late-fourth century CE. It examines three new developments that came about – birth of democracy, consolidation of empires and development of universal religions. Michael Scott is a quite young professor of classics and ancient history at the University of Warwick and has authored many books on the classical period. He is best known to the public as the presenter of ancient history programs on the BBC.

The first part of the book focuses on man’s relationship to man, as negotiated through politics. Development of democracy in Athens was such a groundbreaking event that the Athenian principles continue to be employed as a mark of enlightened rule in the modern world. Cleisthenes set the basic principles in 508 BCE against tyrannical monarchs in Athens. What he christened the new system was eunomia (good order) against dysnomia (bad order) of the old ways. Though it was also called isonomia (equal order), the name demokratia stuck after the Persian invasions in 480s BCE. Scott takes great care to differentiate between the Greek system and Rome’s republic established in 509 BCE by the expulsion of King Turquinius Superbus. The new system of voting came to be known as res publica romana (the public thing of the Roman people). It was an absolute democracy in Athens where the people were organized as individuals and arbitrary tribes. Romans gravitated towards other interest groups such as patricians, plebeians, aristocrats in an unelected Senate and military leaders. The Roman republic provided for emergency powers to be concentrated in one person designated as a dictator. When the city’s survival was in jeopardy, this single head was deemed to be essential to pursue particular ends, after which he would step down. This difference made the Roman system beset with sectarian interests, but made possible an elaborate circle of mutual checks and balances that kept all levels of society believe that they had more to gain from the system than from wreaking it. It is an eye-opener to the modern world that the more autocratic Roman system had a greater lifespan than the total democracy of Athens.

Scott then moves on to examine the relationships forged between ancient communities through warfare. This was also the age in which mega states emerged across the known world in the form of Rome and the Han Empire in China. The book presents an absorbing story of the fight between Rome and Carthage for supremacy in the Mediterranean. The actions and consultations between Hannibal and the Roman general Scipio Africanus is absorbing. Interesting episodes from Polybius and Livy are given here. However, the author’s coverage of India and China looks more like an attempt to ensure a token representation to these two in a work of this nature than a genuine effort to identify the common thread that links these two cultures with their Roman, Greek and Seleucid counterparts. The accuracy of facts related to India is especially doubtful. Ashoka is said to be so transformed by his conversion to Buddhism that he is said to have donated away all his wealth which spelt doom for his empire. Recent research on that great Indian king portrays him as a much more pragmatic monarch than the naïve king Scott makes him out to be. Ashoka didn’t shun violence altogether, as can be expected from a king of those times. He didn’t turn vegetarian overnight, but merely reduced the number of birds and beasts killed for food in the royal kitchen. The narrative on Han dynasty is likewise sketchy and is just an outline. However the author neatly summarizes the geo-political upset at the western borders of the Han which propelled the Xiongnu tribe further west. This made a domino effect. The Xiongnu uprooted the Yueshi who in turn drove the Sakas before them. This exodus helped open trade routes between the East and West that later came to be called the Silk Road. The first event ever to be recorded in the histories of both East and the West is the invasion and occupation of Bactria around 140 CE by the nomadic Yueshi tribe. Strabo and Justin recorded this incident in Roman chronicles and Sima Qian in China wrote about this upon hearing about it from the Han ambassador Zhang Qian deputed to Bactria.

Development of major religions as a response to the political climate in fourth century CE constitutes the third issue the book analyses. This was a crucial period for the religions – Christianity, Buddhism and Hinduism – in their theological development, growth, acceptance and integration within human societies. Development of faiths, while somewhat destabilizing for society, offered an opportunity to harness that religious belief towards the security and expansion of imperial power. Constantine is the most notable sovereign of this era. Whereas the Romans persecuted Christians generally, Constantine’s strife-torn rise to power and his need for controlling a vast empire constituting much diversity in geography and society, compelled him to assume a gentler approach to it. Pagan worship supported the idea of multiple rulers like multiple gods, while Christianity provided strong support for Constantine’s vision of a single unified community under a single ruler, like its single god. Even though he is often counted as the thirteenth apostle, Constantine adopted a very pragmatic policy towards different faiths. The agreement he signed with Licinius, the ruler of the eastern empire, in 313 CE permitted toleration of all religions. He continued worship of the Sun-god and banned all business on Sundays so that the day could be dedicated to Sun-worship. It may also be recalled that he accepted baptism only in his deathbed. Meanwhile Hinduism re-emerged from its Vedic past in the Gupta period and Buddhism thrived in China in the interregnum after the fall of Han dynasty. Thus ends the third part that studies the relationship of man and gods as played out through adoption, adaption and innovation in religious belief.

The book is very informative as it stresses on the theme of connectedness of the ancient world through the lens of three crucial moments and three themes. Karl Jespers coined the term Axial Age which runs from the eighth to third centuries BCE in which a profound change in thought came amount in all the major regions of high culture in the world. Though there was no communication between them, civilizations in the Axial Age developed ideas and institutions that continue to be widely prevalent. Scott develops on this idea and extrapolates his argument till the fourth century CE. The chance-like nature of human civilizations seen through the narrative is unmistakable. The author warns that the inevitable survival of any aspect of our society should not be taken for granted, but instead we must fight actively for what we wish to remain part of our world. Greece, Rome, India and China are the major centres of culture visited in the book, but Armenia also find a conspicuous place by elaboration of the growth of Christianity there. While India is included, its peculiar innovation of republics of North India in the pre-Mauryan period doesn’t find mention. The book is the most readable when it describes events in Rome.

The book is highly recommended.

Rating: 3 Star