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There really really ought to be a book about how the staple crops of different civilizations shape and influence those civilizations, and I really want to read it.
Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky and A History of the World in 6 Glasses by Tom Standage (three are alcohol, three have caffeine) are not quite that, but may still be of interest?
I read Salt back in the day and it's so so good, second the rec. I have heard of 6 Glasses and not read it but I am sure I would probably love it. Gotta see if the library has it. Thank you!
Gonna throw Empire of Cotton by Sven Beckert in the ring here! You'll never see the modern world the same way again.
A Short History Of The World According To Sheep by Sally Coulthard blew my mind. So many things are tied to wool and sheep and weaving and so many words and phrases are tied to wool, people have no idea.
Example words which come from textiles/weaving, if not specifically wool (go look them up!): subtle, shoddy, tabby, Brazil, rocket, twit, warped, going batty, on tenterhooks, text...
I'll throw in a rec for Pickled, Potted, and Canned by Sue Shephard - a very interesting look at food preservation and how the availability of different types of food preservation shaped cultures and cuisines.
Sweetness and Power is this but for the topic of sugar
The Lost Supper: Searching for the Future of Food in the Flavors of the Past might also be up your alley. It's about "forgotten" foods and staples. They talk about different types of wheat, sauces, veggies, etc and a little about the cultures from whence they come
Also: Much Depends on Dinner by Margaret Visser. One of my favourite books.
DO I HAVE A SERIES FOR YOU. University of California Press has a gift for you and it is a 80+ book series on food studies. There are even some that are open access (legally free), but the rest are in libraries.
I also highly recommend Frostbite by Nicola Twilley. It’s about the impact refrigeration has had/is having on food preservation and culture, globally. It was one of my favorite books of this last year.
Also, The Rice Theory of Culture https://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1172&context=orpc By Thomas Talhelm
Can't believe no one's mentioned Consider the Fork yet, which is about how environment/resources shape our ways of eating, which shapes both our culture and our concepts of politeness. So interesting, really recommend!
helpful list of baihe translations by actual humans (self-identified), compiled by @true0bIue
Of course I can
I’ll leave you a small list, some of them are classics you def should read. Each one has its rating, a direct link to its scanlation and a direct link to an online reader.
Ikan gatul (guppies) and Kepiting Yuyu (rice Paddy crab), two common denizens in Surabaya sewers.
was talking to my mom about how white people ignore the contributions of poc to academia and I found myself saying the words "I bet those idiots think Louis Pasteur was the first to discover germ theory"
which admittedly sounded pretentious as fuck but I'm just so angry that so few people know about the academic advancements during the golden age of Islam.
Islamic doctors were washing their hands and equipment when Europeans were still shoving dirty ass hands into bullet wounds. ancient Indians were describing tiny organisms worsening illness that could travel from person to person before Greece and Rome even started theorizing that some illnesses could be transmitted
also, not related to germ theory, but during the golden age of Islam, they developed an early version of surgery on the cornea. as in the fucking eye. and they were successful
and what have white people contributed exactly?
please go research the golden age of Islamic academia. so many of us wouldn't be alive today if not for their discoveries
people ask sometimes how I can be proud to be Muslim. this is just one of many reasons
some sources to get you started:
but keep in mind, it wasn't just science and medicine! we contributed to literature and philosophy and mathematics and political theory and more!
maybe show us some damn respect
I'd like to give a few examples.
🧪The man known as the father of chemistry (or alchemy, our teacher said both are used for him), Jabir ibn Hayyan. He wrote a book named Kitab al-Kimya, "kimya" means chemistry, and the word chemistry originated from that as well. He invented aqua regia, he had the first chemistry lab, discovered the methods of refining and crystallizing nitric acid, hydrogen chloride and sulfuric acid, and discovered diethyl ether, citric acid, acetic acid and tartaric acid. He developed the "retort" and literally introduced the concept of "base" to chemistry.
📐The father/ founder of algebra, Al-Khwarizmi. He wrote a book called Al-Jabr and the word "algebra" comes from "jabr". He presented the first systematic solution of linear and quadratic equations. One of his achievements in algebra was his demonstration of how to solve quadratic equations by completing the square, for which he provided geometric justifications. He introduced the methods of "reduction" and "balancing". The word "algorithm" literally comes from his name. He also produced the first table of tangents.
📐Biruni, who proposed that the radius be accepted as a unit in trigonometric functions and added secant, cosecant and cotangent functions to it. He made many contributions to astronomy that are too detailed for me to write here because this is long enough already, but for medicine, he managed to make a woman give birth by C section. He wrote Kitabu's Saydane which describes the benefits of around 3000 plants and how they are used.
🩺The father of early polymeric medicine, Ibn Sina. His books, The Law of Medicine and The Book of Healing were taught as the basic works in medical science in various European universities until the mid-17th century. He discovered that the eye was made up of six sections and that the retina was important for vision, performed cataract surgery. He performed kidney surgery, diagnosed diabetes by analyzing urine, identified tumors, and worked on diseases such as facial paralysis, ulcers, and jaundice. He used "anesthesia" in surgeries, invented instruments such as forceps and scalpels to remove catheters and tumors. He was the first physician in history to mention the existence of microbes, at a time when there was no microscope. He made contributions to so many fields: astronomy, physics, chemistry, psychology (he suggested treating patients with music).
🩺Al-Zahrawi wrote Kitab al-Tasrif, a thirty-volume encyclopedia of medical practices. The surgery chapter of this work became the standard textbook in Europe for the next five hundred years. He pioneered the use of catgut for internal stitches, and his surgical instruments are still used today to treat people. He did so much work in surgery that I can't write them all here. The first clinical description of an operative procedure for hydrocephalus was given by him, he clearly described the evacuation of superficial intracranial fluid in hydrocephalic children. He was also the first physician to identify the hereditary nature of haemophilia and describe an abdominal pregnancy, a subtype of ectopic pregnancy that in those days was a fatal affliction, and was first to discover the root cause of paralysis.
✈️Abbas ibn Firnas devised a means of manufacturing colorless glass, invented various planispheres, made corrective lenses, devised an apparatus consisting of a chain of objects that could be used to simulate the motions of the planets and stars, designed a water clock, and a prototype for a kind of metronome. He also attempted to FLY, and he did fly a respectable distance but forgot to add a tail to his wings and didn't stick the landing.
Women also became scholars in the Islamic society. An example would be Maryam al-Ijliyya, who was an astronomer and an astrolabe maker, who measured the altitude of celestial bodies with the astrolabes she made. Another example would be Fatima al-Fihri, who founded the oldest university in the world, the University of Qarawiyyin.
Baghdad was the dream place anyone in academia now would want to go, it was a peaceful place of inclusivity and research. So many scholars advanced so many fields of study. Ibn al-Haytham invented camera obscura (and pinhole camera), Ibn al-Nafis was the first to describe the pulmonary circulation of blood, father of robotics Ismail al-Jazari invented the elephant clock and his list of contributions to engineering are so long that I can't write them here...
These are just a few examples, of course. I hope this encourages people to do research on this topic more. I even added some emojis to make this more fun to read.💁🏻♀️
Vaccination in the form of inoculation was introduced to the anglosphere and from there into published scientific literature by an enslaved African man named Onesimus in the 1700s.
I wanted to find a source from someone who was a bit politically engaged with the topic, here’s a sort of starter (although they do assume you have heard of Onesimus.)
Ivanmizi Spa Day!
[Id: A drawing of Ivan and Mizi. Both are wearing green spa masks, flower hair clips, and bathrobes. Ivan wears a fluffy white bathrobe while Mizi wears a silky pink one. Ivan is also drawn with his front bangs clipped on top of his head and a Mizi representative pink cartoon bunny stick in his hand. Mizi is drawn with her side bangs clipped to the side. She holds up a blue blob representative of Ivan and also winks and gives a peace sign to the viewer. Behind the two is a vanity. The text at the top left reads “Hashtag sleepover” /end Id]
