FOOD, PLANTS AND HISTORY
                           September 7, 1990
        
     In 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue!  And why, you ask, did he
do that, and where was he going?  The goal was to find a new route to
India.  Why India (amongst other places)?  For their spices (and other
things), their plants, their tea (later).  And from this grew
histories greatest recorded explosion of global exploration.  This
search led to the intensive development of ships and navigation
equipment that gave Europe an edge over every other culture in the
world.  In the 1800's 10 million Britains conquered 350 million
Chinese with that era's cutting edge technology.

     An example--followed now by a proposal that history has been
influenced on yet a larger scale, on a higher level, by plants.
Consider just two of the many plants on this planet...  Wheat and
rice.  The former is the food base for Western democratic societies,
in general, and the latter, the base for Eastern and authoritarian
societies.

     Wheat can be grown by a single person.  In some parts of the
American (the most democratic society) Midwest you only have to
scatter seeds on the topsoil.  Rice can't be grown by an individual.
It takes many people cooperating and organizing over a period of time.
The cultivation of rice requires considerable care and attention and a
relatively inflexible schedule.  First there is the water.  It has to
be very secure and predictable.  The chain of command must extend from
the individual field all the way back to the source.  And there must
be many fields.  This allows the work of constructing complex
irrigation systems and interlocking paddies to be spread over many
people and much time.  In some cases, in Bali, for instance, the
structure and chain of command is implemented via religious practices.
The year is divided into two growing seasons.  The religious calendar
tells each person exactly when and what to do.  Respect for, and the
imposition of authority on society, is a deeply ingrained social
practice.  And so, as a means of guaranteeing a food supply, Eastern
societies, China, Japan, Vietnam, etc, have been authoritarian AS A
CONSEQUENCE OF rice cultivation.  Europe had no need, and America less
so, of this authoritarian structure to guarantee its food supply.
Conversely, a change in the basis of the Asian food supply will
expedite the restructuring of those societies.  Less authority will be
needed to create an adequate food supply.

     And now you want to know about corn, beans, and potatoes in the
New World of America?  Well, that is the subject of another essay!
But, in the meantime, this writer leaves readers with the question of
how the concept of zero was used in the New World, but not the wheel,
and how these two ideas are connected with corn, beans, and potatoes.