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Andy Warner's Oddball Histories: Spices and Spuds: How Plants Made Our World

by Andy Warner

A graphic history of the plants behind global change

Regular price $20.80 USD
Regular price $34.67 USD Sale price $20.80 USD
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Hardcover New English

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AlbakiReads Editorial

A graphic history of the plants behind global change

Plants take center stage in this nonfiction graphic novel about the ways crops, spices, and other green resources have shaped human history. Andy Warner connects everyday foods and plant products to large-scale developments including trade, empire, war, famine, and prosperity. Examples range from pepper’s link to the Age of Exploration and Rome’s wheat supply to tea conflicts and corn’s path from Aztec floating fields to modern uses. As a follow-up to Pests and Pets, the book uses comics to make connections between familiar grocery-store items and the historical forces surrounding them.

Good fit for readers who enjoy

  • Kids interested in history told through surprising everyday subjects
  • Graphic-novel readers who enjoy science and nature nonfiction
  • Young learners curious about food, agriculture, trade, and empires

Themes

Plants and human historyFood and agricultureTrade and explorationEmpires and conflictEnvironmental resources

Based on publisher information and book metadata.

Book overview

From New York Times bestselling author Andy Warner comes a highly entertaining, informative graphic novel that traces our ever-evolving relationship with plants through time.

Did you know that plants helped shape our modern world?

It may sound ridiculous, but empires have risen and fallen because of stuff you'd find in your grocery store's vegetable aisle. Through wars, famine, prosperity, and more, every aspect of our lives and livelihoods has something to do with plants!

Whether or not you notice them, plants are as central to our day-to-day lives as a bowl of rice or a plate of pasta, and they have shaped our history the same way a gardener trims a topiary.

Did you know that a pepper blockade led to the Age of Exploration? How about that huge wheat barges once kept Rome running with free bread? Or that whole wars were fought over tea? Get ready to follow corn's weird journey from the floating fields of the Aztec emperors to the glossy shine on this book's cover.

Andy Warner sifts through the roots and leaves of our long, complicated history with the earth's original green resources in this hilarious, fact-filled follow-up to Andy Warner's Oddball Histories: Pests and Pets.
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