Commodity Histories

Abstract

One striking characteristic of commodity histories, a suddenly ubiquitous genre of popular nonfiction, is a certain overkill in their subtitles. A representative sample might include, say,Corn and Capitalism: How a Botanical Bastard Grew to Global Dominance(Warman),Tobacco: A Cultural History of How an Exotic Plant Seduced Civilization(Gately),The Potato: How the Humble Spud Rescued the Western World(Zuckerman),The World of Caffeine: The Science and Culture of the World's Most Popular Drug(Weinberg and Bealer),Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World(Kurlansky), andMauve: How One Man Invented a Color That Changed the World(Garfield). Only slightly less over-the-top than the “changed the world” clause, which also appears in recent histories of vanilla, house cats, Ping-Pong balls, dishwashing liquid, and pocket lint, is the vogue for two-word titles in which an adjective, usually a commodity-identifying color, is paired with the most coveted of precious metals. Some examples areBlue Gold(water [Barlow and Clarke]),White Gold(rubber [Yungjohann]),Black Gold(oil [Woodward]), andGreen Gold(tea and marijuana—two books [Bennet; Macfarlane and Macfarlane]). Such titles suggest that all these commodities, even the humblest, have the power to get continents discovered, dynasties toppled, mountains moved. We take some of these commodities for granted, but all of them have changed the world.

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