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), and Mauve: 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 are Blue Gold (water [Barlow and Clarke]), White Gold (rubber [Yungjohann]), Black Gold (oil [Woodward]), and Green 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.

Demand without desire: Food and the history of capitalism

“…Bruce Robbins, a literary scholar with an interest in the notion of upward mobility, published a useful review of commodities histories as a genre in 2005 (Robbins, , pp.454–463). Robbins identified Sidney Mintz as the originator of commodity histories, which is both reasonable and important to this argument, given that Mintz was inspired by curiosity about a comestible.…”

“…Robbins argued that while academic commodity histories “have repeatedly forced consumers to pay attention to producers,” mass market versions elide the physical realities of labor and tend to be boosters for the product (Robbins, , p. 454). He notes that a large portion of popular commodity histories are about food.…”

“…These histories, he argues, “do not merely take the existence of capitalism for granted. They tend to make a forceful argument on capitalism's behalf” (Robbins, p. 456). A common trope within the genre, Robbins notes, is the democratization of a given commodity.…”

“…Robbins argued that popular commodities histories are like the great man biographies that made up most of historical literature until the 20th century in that they overvalue one item to the detriment of understanding the whole picture. Academic commodity histories, on the other hand make clear the “social relations behind” the substance in question (Robbins, , p. 456). When we ask about the role of the commodity in social and cultural life, we are exploring why it exists in a marketplace and what motions it may be subject to.…”

“…When we ask about the role of the commodity in social and cultural life, we are exploring why it exists in a marketplace and what motions it may be subject to. Robbins referred, for example, to a book about potatoes which notes that when English people originally encountered these tubers, they designated them unfit for human consumption, feeding them instead to livestock (Robbins, , p. 457). When potatoes carried this identity into the marketplace, their value and their experience (if a potato can be said to have such a thing) was different from what it would be when potatoes were eventually accepted for human dining.…”