Political Analysis essays

Political Analysis essays It would seem obvious to most that large tobacco growing states like South Carolina would be the main voters against stricter legislation. In actuality large tobacco companies like Philip Morris are some of the largest donators to the politicians in the non tobacco states. As said in this article, "As long as Washington lawmakers are hooked on donations from Big Tobacco, the industry has enough friends to ward off strong federal oversight." This statement is very true. For years now many bills and acts have been presented to congress such as the Healthy Kids' Act which would allow the Food and Drug Administration to regulate tobacco, create a major anti-smoking ad campaign, provide no immunity for lawsuits against tobacco firms, and curb youth smoking. These bills typically get voted against by politicians that have taken or need the donations and support of the tobacco industry. For example, Rep. Vic Fazio, D-Calif., who received $62,500 since 1991 the ninth highest amount in c ontributions from tobacco companies among House members and the highest among lawmakers from states that don't grow tobacco voted against the Healthy Kid's Act aswell as two tobacco bills introduced last year, one to increase Food and Drug Administration funding and another to prohibit government funds from being used to pay for tobacco crop insurance. The consumer advocacy group Public Citizen conducted a survey in 1999 that found that members who voted in favor of tobacco legislation received considerably more money than those who didn't. Senators voting in favor of tobacco industry positions received as much as 15 times more money from tobacco company contributions in 1997 than their counterparts who didn't. House members received nine times more money. What politicians might be avoiding passing in Washington, local governments are passing in their small and large counties. One thousand five hundred and fifteen counties in the nation have banned smo...

Precalculus Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Precalculus - Assignment Example However, though the tortoise appears to move with less and less of span travelled, Achilles would have to work on filling in steps or strides to be able to catch up with it – something which tends to be impossible for each task he takes is simply part of an ‘infinite’ number of tasks he is yet to carry out and every time, the tortoise would have gone a bit farther. Thus, Zeno’s argument may be claimed to have been justified as correct in reasoning through such a scenario. In reference to their rates, if Achilles were to catch up with the tortoise at 10 times the animal’s rate at some time, t, then 10x*t = x*t + 1000. Solving this equation for distance ‘xt’, 9xt = 1000 and xt = 111 and 1/9 meters or that about 111.11 meters must have been taken by Achilles to overtake the tortoise. The figure likely expresses representation of a finite value to which the partial sums 100, 110, 111, etc.

Moscow Olympics 1980. Urban Policy. Urban Regeneration Speech or Presentation

Moscow Olympics 1980. Urban Policy. Urban Regeneration - Speech or Presentation Example The problem is that although Moscow was experiencing the Soviet war in 1980, its urban infrastructure warranted it an opportunity to host Olympic Games (Real 1996). Other cities did not have the standardized infrastructure to accommodate the event. In return, the event did not run as expected because some nations like the US amongst others boycotted the event. Since then, cities are on the run to standardize their infrastructure so as to be given the opportunity to host Olympic Games. This problem is worth discussing because; if there were other urban areas of the same urban standards as Moscow and not experiencing cold war, the Olympic Games could have been held there. Today every other city in the world has sought urban policy or urban regeneration to be in a position to host international events like Olympic Games. The differing perspective of this topic is that since the Moscow Olympic games of 1980, the society has made Olympic Games more visible and spectacular (Andranovich & Heying 2001). The International Olympic Committee (IOC) which is the body that conducts Olympic sports has to be very specific in outlining the requirements needed by a city to host the event. The staging is done on a manual detailing where it has to be evaluated in the bi dossiers of candidate cities. The demand for hosting Olympic Games has gone up due to the urban transformation or regeneration which has taken place since 1980 when Moscow hosted Olympic Games. Cities have regenerated their transport sectors, technology, cultural programmes, art and environmental management among other critical sectors which can deny them the opportunity to host international events li ke the Olympic Games. Once a city has been selected to host the event, it is monitored closely in planning and preparing for the event by the IOC coordination committee to ensure everything is up to standard. Sometimes the commission

Production of Frozen Foods for Export in Thailand Dissertation

Production of Frozen Foods for Export in Thailand - Dissertation Example The US and UK's economies were promising but their consumption patterns were not. Both countries had plenty of frozen foods in the market already; this means that Thailand exporters would have to have a solid product and good marketing strategies. All in all, Thailand exporters should proceed with the venture but they should concentrate their efforts in China then the US and the UK in that order. Contents Declaration 1 Acknowledgement 2 ABSTRACT 3 Contents 4 1.0 INTRODUCTION 6 1.1 Background to study 6 1.2 Objectives of the research 15 2.0 LITERATURE REVIEW 16 2.1 An examination of exporting theories as applied to Thailand 16 2.2 Factors that Thailand exporters have considered before exportation 21 2.3 Thai's frozen food industry 25 3.0 METHODOLOGY 30 3.1 Overall research strategy 30 3.2 Secondary research 30 3.21 Why secondary research was chosen 34 3.3 Primary research: Online questionnaires 34 3.31 Why online questionnaires were chosen 34 3.32 Problems of using online questionnaires 36 3.4 Methodology 37 3.41 Sampling design and strategy 37 3.42 The process 40 3.43 Sampling criteria 42 4.0 RESULTS 45 4.1 SECONDARY DATA 45 4.12 Feasibility of producing frozen food with reference to a particular exporter in Thailand 45 4.13 Market potential of target countries 48 4. 14 Why the springboard to foreign markets 64 4.2 PRIMARY DATA 64 4.21 Questionnaire results 64 5.0 DATA ANALYSIS (QUESTIONNAIRE) 67 6.0 DISCUSSION OF RESULTS 69 6.1 Thailand 69 6. 11 Analysis of Thailand's macro economic situation in relation to its export potential 69 6.12 Analysis of Thailand's frozen food sector and capability 71 6.2 China 72 6. 21 Analysis of Chinese market potential in... From the statistics indicating the performance of Thailand products in the local frozen food industry, there is a lot of promise for further expansion. The government provides incentives for the manufacture of goods. On top of that, the country is technologically prepared to take up this venture as other commodities have fared very well in the Thai market. The country’s economy has been growing dramatically over the last few years and can, therefore, sustain large-scale production. The country is richly endowed with agricultural commodities which are a crucial part of the frozen food industry. If kept unchecked, it could affect the nature of trade in the country and must be controlled. All in all, Thai is definitely ready for the international manufacturer of frozen foods since it has already started doing this locally. Consequently, Thailand stands to reap benefits of exporting into China. However, some caution should be taken with the nature of the population. It would be advisable for exporters to adhere to regional preferences while offering foods there. On top of that, Thailand exporters need to be wary of competition from local frozen food producers. Therefore, more quality will out-compete these individuals. On top of that, there are higher chances of succeeding in the market, if the country focuses its sales on the eastern coastal areas first. This is because the urban population is located there and they are more exposed to convenience foods rather than those ones in the central region.

Importance of Breakfast in Relation to Obesity

Importance of Breakfast in Relation to Obesity A critical evaluation Through many influential sources, such as research and advertising, breakfast has been widely portrayed as the most important meal of the day. In fact, much epidemiological evidence tends to support this notion by demonstrating that breakfast skipping leads to an increased risk of obesity (McCrory et al, 2014; Browns et al, 2013). Since the 1980s, the prevalence of overweight and obesity has sharply risen worldwide, with 1.9 billion adults being characterized as overweight and 600 million as obese in 2014 (WHO, 2015). In the UK alone, the proportion of men and women characterized as obese has increased by 14% and 10% from the early 1990s to 2015 (Public Health England, 2017). For an individual, obesity is usually the result of an imbalance between energy consumed and energy expended (WHO, 2016). Although energy imbalance ultimately leads to weight gain, the primary factors are not yet completely understood. Currently, there is no evidence linking specific foods to obesity, however re cently, much attention has been given to eating behaviours, such as breakfast eating, as they may represent a combined effect of a number of nutrients, and breakfast habits could potentially demonstrate an interplay between other lifestyle factors, such as an overall poor diet and physical inactivity. If eating behaviours are observed to be causally linked to weight gain, then they could potentially represent practical strategies for obesity prevention. On these grounds, this essay will explore a wide variety of evidence regarding the association between breakfast skipping and weight gain. Furthermore, we shall discuss whether breakfast eating habits have been linked with overall dietary health and physical activity, as these factors are now known to be strongly linked with obesity. It is reasonable to assume that ones beliefs about breakfast will influence the likelihood of an individual engaging in this behaviour. For example, early research reported that the majority of habitual breakfast eaters believed that breakfast was important for providing energy and increasing productivity throughout the morning (Chapman et al, 1998). More recently, among a UK national representative sample, it was reported that 64% of the population habitually consumed breakfast, whilst 6% skipped it. Moreover, the breakfast eaters believed that breakfast maintained weight control, whereas breakfast skippers believed that missing breakfast supported weight loss (Reeves et al, 2013). This evidence signifies that eating behaviours, such as breakfast skipping, are largely determined by what individuals believe. Some beliefs about scientific matters are thought true despite substantial evidence disproving them, whereas other science-based beliefs are allegedly true even though inadequate evidence exists to support or disprove them (McCrory et al, 2014). This is important because a widely accepted belief is that frequently consuming breakfast compared with skipping breakfast is preventative of weight gain or causes weight loss. A recent meta-analysis reported that the risk for overweight and obesity increases by 55% when breakfast is skipped (Browns et al, 2013).   As this association has often been reported, a theory has been developed which, if correct, may potentially explain how breakfast skipping can lead to weight gain.   The theory states that when breakfast is skipped, there is an overcompensation for the energy missed at breakfast by ingesting more energy than one otherwise would have consumed at breakfast alone (Pereira et al, 2011). On the other hand, lets also consider that breakfast skipping could result in no weight change over time (in a scenario where breakfast skipping does not lead to overcompensation) or to weight loss (in a scenario where there is absence of compensation). While cross-sectional studies have generally reported that breakfast skipping leads to weight gain, currently, there are limited high quality experimental evidence supporting this notion. It is also impor tant to point out that all of the studies reviewed in the Browns et al (2013) meta-analysis, were cross-sectional thereby causality cannot be concluded from their à ¯Ã‚ ¬Ã‚ ndings. Whilst randomized controlled trials do not directly allow conclusions to be drawn concerning fluctuations in energy balance, they do allow for conclusions to be made about temporary changes which, if constant over time, could potentially result in changes in energy balance. Yet, short-duration (à ¢Ã¢â‚¬ °Ã‚ ¤ 1 week) randomized controlled trials investigating the effects of breakfast skipping on successive energy intake have been equivocal (Astbury et al, 2011; Leidy et al, 2013; Levitsky et al, 2013). For example two of these studies reported that impromptu lunch intake was greater after breakfast skipping, compared to when breakfast was consumed (Astbury et al, 2011; Leidy et al, 2013). In contrast, Levitsky et al (2013) showed under compensation at lunch, signifying that the collective intake across breakfast and lunch remained lower in the breakfast skipping condition. On the other hand, longer-duration (2-3 weeks) randomized controlled trials do not appear to show a relationshi p between breakfast skipping and weight gain (Farshchi et al, 2005; Schlundt et al, 1992; Tuttle et al, 1950). Although the results of these experimental trials are varied, they do not support for the theory that breakfast skipping leads to overeating. Furthermore, in prospective studies with up to 10 years follow-up, it has been observed that individuals who regularly ingest breakfast appear to gain less weight (Odegaard et al, 2013; Purslow et al, 2008; van der Heijden et al, 2007). One explanation for this could be that skipping breakfast may merely be an indication of overall lifestyle, for example, substantial evidence suggests that skipping breakfast is associated with a less nutritious diet and less physical activity (Szajewska et al, 2010; Rampersaud et al, 2005). This is significant because both of these modifiable factors are strongly correlated with the increased risk of obesity and other chronic diseases. For example, much epidemiological evidence shows a relationship between eating breakfast and healthier food choices and dietary habits (Skinner et al, 1985; Lattimore et al, 2010), whereas, breakfast skippers are associated with whole diets that are inadequate (Christakis et al, 1968; Serra-Majem et al, 2002). Of the s tudies mentioned above, two are outdated, nevertheless, they have been included to demonstrate that the association between breakfast consumption and healthy lifestyle habits has been repeatedly observed over the last 50 years or so, demonstrating that this relationship has remained constant over time. To further explain the results mentioned above, a recent review by Rampersaud et al (2005), revealed that habitual breakfast skippers were more likely to be overweight compared to breakfast eaters, regardless of a higher overall energy intake in the breakfast eating group. It is possible that the combination of breakfast skipping with additional poor eating behaviours, such as an insufficient fruit and vegetable consumption, is contributing to the results observed in this study, as it has been previously established that a low intake of fruit and vegetables increases the risk for obesity and type 2 diabetes mellitus (Hamer et al, 2007). Regarding physical activity, much epidemiological evidence reports that breakfast skippers are less likely to participate in physical activity (Cohen et al, 2003; Keski-Rahkonen et al, 2003; Aarnio et al, 2002). A proposed mechanism is that skipping breakfast may lead to lethargy and physical inactivity throughout the day (Pollitt et al, 1998; Meyers et al, 1989 ; Shaw et al, 1998) thereby contributing to positive energy balance and thus weight gain. Although there is a vast amount of evidence supporting the idea that breakfast skipping is associated with poor dietary habits and physical inactivity, no conclusions can be drawn yet as the evidence which has mostly found these positive associations have been drawn from cross-sectional and prospective studies which as mentioned before, do not prove causality. Clearly, obesity is a significant public health problem due to its high prevalence and important health consequences. Therefore, in order to provide practical recommendations for the control and/or prevention of obesity, its causal factors must be identfied. Although there is substantial evidence linking breakfast skipping to weight gain, a reasoned conclusion cannot be drawn as the majority of studies reporting this association merely identify a relationship, not a causal pathway as they are cross-sectional or observational studies. On the other hand, experimental trials can usually determine causation.   Regarding the trials reviewed in this essay, short-term trials have demonstrated effects of breakfast skipping on energy intake and appetite later in the day, although together these results are ambiguous, also longer-term randomized controlled trials have not show effects of breakfast skipping on energy imbalance and subsequent weight change. Overall, the evidence we have discussed here does not strongly support the widely accepted theory that breakfast skipping leads to an overcompensation of energy in subsequent meals, nor does the evidence support a common belief that breakfast contributes to weight gain or loss. It can however be argued that whether an individual eats breakfast or not, this will not directly influence their risk of weight gain or obesity. In fact it could be argued that other lifestyle behaviours, such as physical inactivity and inadequate diets, are actually the factors driving this observed association. An integral issue when evaluating the impact that lifestyle behaviours have on obesity is that these behaviours are very difficult to precisely measure within a large, generalizable population. Equally, trying to establish that one factor alone is impacting weight gain is a difficult task, as seen in this essay, many factors interact with and affect each other. Therefore, as to whether breakfast is t he most important meal of the day with regards to the obesity, the jury is still out, so to speak. In the meantime, the simple recommendation to eat less and exercise more appears to still be the most effective tool in the prevention and treatment of obesity. Words: 1569 References Aarnio, M., Winter, T., Kujala, U. and Kaprio, J., (2002). Associations of health related behaviour, social relationships, and health status with persistent physical activity and inactivity: a study of Finnish adolescent twins. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 36(5), p360-364. Astbury, N.M., Taylor, M.A. and Macdonald, I.A., (2011). Breakfast consumption affects appetite, energy intake, and the metabolic and endocrine responses to foods consumed later in the day in male habitual breakfast eaters. The Journal of nutrition, 141 (7), p1381-1389. Brown, A.W., Brown, M.M.B. and Allison, D.B., 2013. Belief beyond the evidence: using the proposed effect of breakfast on obesity to show 2 practices that distort scientific evidence. The American journal of clinical nutrition, 98(5), pp.1298-1308. Chapman, G.E. and Melton, C.L., (1998). College and university students breakfast consumption patterns: behaviours, beliefs, motivations and personal and environmental influences. Canadian Journal of Dietetic Practice and Research, 59 (4), p176. Christakis, G., Miridjanian, A., Nath, L., Khurana, H.S., Cowell, C., Archer, M., Frank, O., Ziffer, H., Baker, H. and James, G., 1968. A nutritional epidemiologic investigation of 642 New York City children. The American journal of clinical nutrition, 21 (1), p107-126. Cohen, B., Evers, S., Manske, S., Bercovitz, K. and Edward, H.G., (2003). Smoking, physical activity and breakfast consumption among secondary school students in a southwestern Ontario community. Canadian Journal of Public Health/Revue Canadienne de Santee Publique, p41-44. Farshchi, H.R., Taylor, M.A. and Macdonald, I.A., (2005). Deleterious effects of omitting breakfast on insulin sensitivity and fasting lipid profiles in healthy lean women. The American journal of clinical nutrition, 81 (2), p388-396. Hamer, M. and Chida, Y., (2007). Intake of fruit, vegetables, and antioxidants and risk of type 2 diabetes: systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of hypertension, 25 (12), p2361-2369. Keski-Rahkonen, A., Kaprio, J., Rissanen, A., Virkkunen, M. and Rose, R.J., (2003). Breakfast skipping and health-compromising behaviors in adolescents and adults. European journal of clinical nutrition, 57(7), p842-853. Lattimore, P., Walton, J., Bartlett, S., Hackett, A. and Stevenson, L., (2010). Regular consumption of a cereal breakfast. Effects on mood and body image satisfaction in adult non-obese women. Appetite, 55(3), p512-521. Leidy, H.J., Ortinau, L.C., Douglas, S.M. and Hoertel, H.A., (2013). Beneficial effects of a higher-protein breakfast on the appetitive, hormonal, and neural signals controlling energy intake regulation in overweight/obese,breakfast-skipping, late-adolescent girls. The American journal of clinical nutrition, 97(4), p677-688. Levitsky, D.A. and Pacanowski, C.R., (2013). Effect of skipping breakfast on subsequent energy intake. Physiology behavior, 119, p9-16. McCrory, M.A., (2014). Meal skipping and variables related to energy balance in adults: A brief review, with emphasis on the breakfast meal. Physiology behavior, 134, p51-54. Meyers, A.F., (1989). Undernutrition, hunger, and learning in children. Nutrition news (USA). Odegaard, A.O., Jacobs, D.R., Steffen, L.M., Van Horn, L., Ludwig, D.S. and Pereira, M.A., (2013). Breakfast frequency and development of metabolic risk. Diabetes care, 36 (10), p3100-3106. Pereira, M.A., Erickson, E., McKee, P., Schrankler, K., Raatz, S.K., Lytle, L.A. and Pellegrini, A.D., (2011). Breakfast frequency and quality may affect glycemia and appetite in adults and children. The Journal of nutrition, 141(1), p163-168. Pollitt, E. and Mathews, R., (1998). Breakfast and cognition: an integrative summary. The American journal of clinical nutrition, 67(4), p804-813. Public Health England contributor. (2017). Adult Obesity. Available: http://www.noo.org.uk/NOO_about_obesity/adult_obesity. Last accessed 13th Mar 2017. Purslow, L.R., Sandhu, M.S., Forouhi, N., Young, E.H., Luben, R.N., Welch, A.A., Khaw, K.T., Bingham, S.A. and Wareham, N.J., 2008. Energy intake at breakfast and weight change: prospective study of 6,764 middle-aged men and women. American journal of epidemiology, 167(2), p188-192. Rampersaud, G.C., Pereira, M.A., Girard, B.L., Adams, J. and Metzl, J.D., (2005). Breakfast habits, nutritional status, body weight, and academic performance in children and adolescents. Journal of the American Dietetic Association, 105(5), p743-760. Reeves, S., Halsey, L.G., McMeel, Y. and Huber, J.W., (2013). Breakfast habits, beliefs and measures of health and wellbeing in a nationally representative UK sample. Appetite, 60, p51-57. Schlundt, D.G., Hill, J.O., Sbrocco, T., Pope-Cordle, J. and Sharp, T., (1992). The role of breakfast in the treatment of obesity: a randomized clinical trial. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 55(3), p645-651. Serra-Majem, L., Bartrina, J.A., Pà ©rez-Rodrigo, C., Ribas-Barba, L. and Delgado-Rubio, A., (2006). Prevalence and deteminants of obesity in Spanish children and young people. British Journal of Nutrition, 96(1), p67-72. Shaw, M.E., (1998). Adolescent breakfast skipping: an Australian study. Adolescence, 33(132), p851-862. Skinner, J.D., Salvetti, N.N., Ezell, J.M., Penfield, M.P. and Costello, C.A., (1985). Appalachian adolescents eating patterns and nutrient intakes. Journal of the American Dietetic Association, 85(9), p1093-1099. Szajewska, H. and RuszczyÅ„ski, M., (2010). Systematic review demonstrating that breakfast consumption influences body weight outcomes in children and adolescents in Europe. Critical reviews in food science and nutrition, 50(2), p113-119. Tuttle, W.W., Daum, K., Myers, L. and Martin, C., (1950). Effect of omitting breakfast on the physiologic response of men. Journal of the American Dietetic Association, 26, p332-335. Heijden, A.A., Hu, F.B., Rimm, E.B. and Dam, R.M., (2007). A prospective study of breakfast consumption and weight gain among US men. Obesity, 15(10), p2463-2469. WHO contributor. (2015). facts on obesity. Available: http://www.who.int/features/factfiles/obesity/facts/en/index4.html. Last accessed 13th Mar 2017. WHO contributor. (2016). Obesity and overweight. Available: http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs311/en/. Last accessed 13th Mar 2017.

French and Russian Revolutions :: European Europe History

French and Russian Revolutions Both the French and Russian revolutions occurred because of two main reasons. Both of these revolutions were the direct results of bad leadership and a bad economy. These two reasons along with other factors caused both of these revolutions. Although they were both similar, they also had differences. A difference between the two is that the Russians had an unsuccessful "pre-revolution" in 1905. Another difference between these two revolutions is the fact that the French turned towards a democracy while the Russian government became communist. In 1905 , Russia had a prerevolution that was put down of the Czar. Instead of learning from this prerevolution, Czar Nicholas II, made a very big mistake by in not introducing some reforms to correct the problems. So because of his actions, the situation grew worse. In 1917, the Russians were fighting in World War I. A good majority of the Russian people were weary and uncontent with the way the war was going and with the Czar's rule. This uncontent along with economic hardships caused riots and demonstrations to break out. The Czar called for the army to put down the revolution as they did in 1905. But the army joined the revolt and the Czar was kicked out of power soon afterwards. A temporary government was set up to decide on what kind of government Russia was gonna set up. Two political parties were set up. The Bolsheviks were one of the two. The leader of the Bolshevik party was a man named Lenin. Lenin was a firm believer of the theories and ideas of Karl Marx. So with his slo gan of "Bread, Peace and Land", Lenin gained the support of the peasants and gained control of Russia and setup a communist state. The French revolution was also caused by a bad ruler and a bad economy. During the early 1780's a big percent of annual budget went towards king Louis XVI's lavish estate at Versailles. France also had no central bank, no paper currency, no ways of getting more money, and an out-dated tax system which only taxed the poor who had no money to begin with. Signs of revolution first appeared when the peasants stormed the fortress known as the Bastille looking for gun powder. The Bastille incident set off revolts all over France and Louis was soon deposed afterwards.A democratic goverment was setup in place of the old monarcy.

The Columbian Exchange

The Columbian Exchange is one of the most significant results of the Age of Exploration and the First Global Age. Food products, livestock and diseases are but three elements of the Columbian Exchange. As Columbus â€Å"discovered America† and Western Europe discovered the various economic opportunities available in the New World, agricultural exchanges between the two regions led to exchanges of other items. Within decades of Columbus' voyages, the trans Atlantic slave trade had begun and hundreds of thousands of native Americans died of diseases brought to America by Europeans and Africans. The early Spanish conquistadors brought gunpowder and the horse to America as well as the Catholic Christian Church. Indeed, the conquistadors brought priests with them and established missions such as St. Augustine, San Diego and San Antonio. The Spanish also brought African slaves to work on sugar plantations. New foods for both Europe and the Americas was a major part of the Columbian Exchange. The Americas provided such new foods as corn, the potato, the tomato, peppers, pumpkins, squash, pineapples, cacao beans (for chocolate) and the sweet potato. Also, such animals as turkeys, provided a new food source for Europeans. Tobacco, an American product, was also carried to Europe. From Europe, the Americas were introduced to such livestock as cattle, pig and sheep as well as grains such as wheat. African products introduced to the Americas included items originally from Asia were brought to the west by European traders and African slaves. These items included the onion, citrus fruits, bananas, coffee beans, olives, grapes, rice and sugar cane. The â€Å"Columbian Exchange†Ã¢â‚¬â€a phrase coined by historian Alfred Crosby—describes the interchange of plants, animals, and diseases between the Old World and the Americas following Columbus's arrival in the Caribbean in 1492. For reasons beyond human control, rooted deep in the divergent evolutionary histories of the continents, the Columbian Exchange massively benefited the people of Europe and its colonies while bringing catastrophe to Native Americans. Psst†¦ Check Out These Resources The Columbian Exchange Statistics The Columbian Exchange Quotes The Columbian Exchange Photos The Columbian Exchange Trivia The Columbian Exchange Primary Sources Why Should I Care? The Columbian Exchange: It's a relatively obscure concept, developed by a relatively obscure historian. Most people have never even heard of it. Its definition—the transmission of non-native plants, animals, and diseases from Europe to the Americas, and vice versa, after 1492—doesn't sound very sexy. And yet the Columbian Exchange just may be the single most important event in the modern history of the world. The Columbian Exchange explains why Indian nations collapsed and European colonies thrived after Columbus's arrival in the New World in 1492. The Columbian Exchange explains why European nations quickly became the wealthiest and most powerful in the world. The Columbian Exchange explains why Africans were sold into slavery on the far side of the ocean to toil in fields of tobacco, sugar, and cotton. The Columbian Exchange even explains why pasta marinara has tomato sauce. If you don't understand the Columbian Exchange, you cannot truly understand the forces that shape the world we live in today. You cannot understand why you speak the language you speak, why you live in the nation you live in, or even why you eat the food you eat. If you don't understand the Columbian Exchange, much of what you think you know about the history of the Americas may be wrong. Spanish soldiers did less to defeat the Incas and Aztecs than smallpox did. Divine Providence did less to bless the Puritan settlers of the Mayflower with good health and fortune than the Pilgrims' own immune systems did. In the Columbian Exchange, ecology became destiny. Powerful environmental forces, understood by no one alive at the time and by very few people even today, determined who would thrive and who would die. And that may be the most shocking truth revealed to those who take the time to understand the Columbian Exchange: we, as humans, cannot always control our own destinies. The most important historical actors in this story are not Christopher Columbus or Moctezuma or Hernan Cortes. They are the smallpox virus, the pig, the potato, and the kernel of corn. The Columbian Exchange Summary & Analysis The Big Picture: Who, What, When, Where & (Especially) Why Columbus: Discovery, Ecology and Conquest Unequal Exchange: Food for Disease History as Demography The drawback of Old World civilizations' reliance upon domesticated animals came in increased incidence of disease. Many of the world's nastiest illnesses derive from bugs that have leapt back and forth between people and their animals. Humans caught smallpox from their cows, influenza from their fowl, bubonic plague from the rats who lived in their houses. By the time of Columbus, the Old World was wracked by endemic contagions of dozens of deadly diseases, which kept life expectancies low and infant mortality rates high. Largely due to the ravages of disease (especially bubonic plague), the population of Europe in 1492 was lower than it had been 200 years earlier. Jared Diamond, best-selling author of Guns, Germs, and Steel, popularized the notion that European imperialism succeeded due to European advantages over other people in the areas of, well†¦ guns, germs, and steel. As far as colonization of the Americas is concerned, though, guns and steel were all but immaterial. The germs alone were enough. The word â€Å"conquistador† evokes memories of Cortes and Pizarro, but in truth the greatest conquistadors of the New World were smallpox and influenza—not to mention typhoid, cholera, tuberculosis, measles, scarlet fever, yellow fever, and malaria. Every one of these diseases, endemic to the Old World, spread to the Americas after 1492 with catastrophic effects for indigenous people there. (In return, the Americas afflicted the Old World with only one major affliction—syphilis. And even that is in dispute; scientists and historians remain divided on whether the disease truly originated in the New World. Old World diseases—lethal enough already on their continents of origin—became exponentially more dangerous in America, where they spread as virgin-soil epidemics among native populations totally lacking in immunities to them. (In Europe and Africa, countless children died from diseases like smallpox and malaria; those w ho survived, however, built up antibodies that inoculated them against adult infection. Since no Native Americans had ever encountered these diseases, none built up any immunity, leaving entire populations as â€Å"virgin soil† for infection. When the diseases struck, entire communities could be felled in a matter of days. ) Virgin-soil epidemics are among the deadliest phenomena ever experienced by humankind, and the death toll of the pandemics unleashed in the Americas by the Columbian Exchange far exceeded that of history's most famous virgin-soil epidemic, Europe's Black Death (an outbreak of bubonic plague in the 1340s). The cataclysmic effects of virgin-soil epidemics struck Native American societies just as they faced the threat of European invasion, decisively reducing the natives' capability to resist colonization. It is worth noting that devastating smallpox pandemics struck both the Aztecs and Incas just before their respective disastrous encounters with Cortes and Pizarro. ) Mississippian Mystery: De Soto and La Salle Perhaps the most arresting evidence of the consequences of virgin-soil epidemics came from the entrada** of Hernando *de* Soto, who led an army of conquistadors deep into the North American mainl and in 1539. De Soto hoped to find gold in the country that today comprises the southeastern United States; he ended up leading more than 600 men and hundreds of livestock on a four-year wild goose chase. In the end, his mission proved to be a fiasco—two-thirds of the men, including De Soto himself, died without ever finding a trace of gold—but De Soto's expedition powerfully illustrated the destructive force of smallpox, which apparently spread from his pigs to the people of the Mississippi Valley. Before leaving, De Soto's men recorded their impressions of the Mississippian people—they found dense settlements, with large villages and cities often sited within view of each other, separated by carefully tended fields of corn. After De Soto left the country, no European returned for more than 100 years. When the French explorer La Salle canoed down the Mississippi Valley in 1682, he found very few villages, no cities, and no fields of corn, but instead a landscape almost devoid of people and overrun by buffalo* (which De Soto had apparently never encountered). * In the 140 years that passed between the explorations of De Soto and La Salle, something transformed the Mississippi Valley from a densely populated Indian heartland into a virtually deserted wilderness. That something was almost certainly smallpox. The landscape encountered by La Salle was not, as he believed, a primeval wilderness, but rather an ecosystem that had recently experienced the sudden destruction of its keystone species—Indians. The buffalo wandered in because few Indians survived to hunt them. * * From Canada to the Tierra del Fuego, the indige*Epidemic* Disease and Manifest Destiny Neither Europeans nor Indians had any scientific understanding of the ecological processes that had so profoundly shaped their encounter. Both groups understood phenomena like agricultural abundance or epidemic disease in spiritual terms, as the respective blessings or punishments of their gods. Thus, the undeniable facts of the European-American encounter—that Indians seemed to be wasting away, opening bounteous lands to the newcomers from across the Atlantic—acquired deep cultural and ideological meanings in the minds of the colonists who eventually founded the United States. Not understanding the scientific processes at work, Anglo-Americans interpreted their ongoing good fortune as proof of God's special endorsement of their nation. For example, John Winthrop—Puritan elder and first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony—perceived divine blessing of the colonists' venture in the Indians' Great Dying: â€Å"For the natives,† Winthrop wrote, â€Å"they are neere all dead of Small poxe, so as the Lord hathe cleared our title to what we possess. 3 A Frenchman on La Salle's voyage down the Mississippi captured the idea even more bluntly: â€Å"Touching these savages, there is a thing I cannot omit to remark to you, it is that it appears visibly that God wishes that they yield their place to new peoples. â€Å"4 Through generations of successful colonization—in which the descendents of Europe built some of the world's healthiest and wealthiest societies in the lands vacated by the Indians—white Americans' conviction tha t their presence in America had received a special blessing from God only grew stronger. The cultural and ideological origins of â€Å"manifest destiny† and â€Å"American exceptionalism† can be found in the exceptionally uneven terms of the Columbian Exchange. Only recently have we become fully aware that the special advantages enjoyed by Europeans in their encounter with Indians were bestowed less by God than by ecology. nous inhabitants of the Americas suffered similar calamities, the Columbian Exchange of diseases ravaging Indian communities and facilitating the European takeover of the hemisphere. Top of Form The Columbian Exchange The Columbian Exchange is one of the most significant results of the Age of Exploration and the First Global Age. Food products, livestock and diseases are but three elements of the Columbian Exchange. As Columbus â€Å"discovered America† and Western Europe discovered the various economic opportunities available in the New World, agricultural exchanges between the two regions led to exchanges of other items. Within decades of Columbus' voyages, the trans Atlantic slave trade had begun and hundreds of thousands of native Americans died of diseases brought to America by Europeans and Africans. The early Spanish conquistadors brought gunpowder and the horse to America as well as the Catholic Christian Church. Indeed, the conquistadors brought priests with them and established missions such as St. Augustine, San Diego and San Antonio. The Spanish also brought African slaves to work on sugar plantations. New foods for both Europe and the Americas was a major part of the Columbian Exchange. The Americas provided such new foods as corn, the potato, the tomato, peppers, pumpkins, squash, pineapples, cacao beans (for chocolate) and the sweet potato. Also, such animals as turkeys, provided a new food source for Europeans. Tobacco, an American product, was also carried to Europe. From Europe, the Americas were introduced to such livestock as cattle, pig and sheep as well as grains such as wheat. African products introduced to the Americas included items originally from Asia were brought to the west by European traders and African slaves. These items included the onion, citrus fruits, bananas, coffee beans, olives, grapes, rice and sugar cane. The â€Å"Columbian Exchange†Ã¢â‚¬â€a phrase coined by historian Alfred Crosby—describes the interchange of plants, animals, and diseases between the Old World and the Americas following Columbus's arrival in the Caribbean in 1492. For reasons beyond human control, rooted deep in the divergent evolutionary histories of the continents, the Columbian Exchange massively benefited the people of Europe and its colonies while bringing catastrophe to Native Americans. Psst†¦ Check Out These Resources The Columbian Exchange Statistics The Columbian Exchange Quotes The Columbian Exchange Photos The Columbian Exchange Trivia The Columbian Exchange Primary Sources Why Should I Care? The Columbian Exchange: It's a relatively obscure concept, developed by a relatively obscure historian. Most people have never even heard of it. Its definition—the transmission of non-native plants, animals, and diseases from Europe to the Americas, and vice versa, after 1492—doesn't sound very sexy. And yet the Columbian Exchange just may be the single most important event in the modern history of the world. The Columbian Exchange explains why Indian nations collapsed and European colonies thrived after Columbus's arrival in the New World in 1492. The Columbian Exchange explains why European nations quickly became the wealthiest and most powerful in the world. The Columbian Exchange explains why Africans were sold into slavery on the far side of the ocean to toil in fields of tobacco, sugar, and cotton. The Columbian Exchange even explains why pasta marinara has tomato sauce. If you don't understand the Columbian Exchange, you cannot truly understand the forces that shape the world we live in today. You cannot understand why you speak the language you speak, why you live in the nation you live in, or even why you eat the food you eat. If you don't understand the Columbian Exchange, much of what you think you know about the history of the Americas may be wrong. Spanish soldiers did less to defeat the Incas and Aztecs than smallpox did. Divine Providence did less to bless the Puritan settlers of the Mayflower with good health and fortune than the Pilgrims' own immune systems did. In the Columbian Exchange, ecology became destiny. Powerful environmental forces, understood by no one alive at the time and by very few people even today, determined who would thrive and who would die. And that may be the most shocking truth revealed to those who take the time to understand the Columbian Exchange: we, as humans, cannot always control our own destinies. The most important historical actors in this story are not Christopher Columbus or Moctezuma or Hernan Cortes. They are the smallpox virus, the pig, the potato, and the kernel of corn. The Columbian Exchange Summary & Analysis The Big Picture: Who, What, When, Where & (Especially) Why Columbus: Discovery, Ecology and Conquest Unequal Exchange: Food for Disease History as Demography The drawback of Old World civilizations' reliance upon domesticated animals came in increased incidence of disease. Many of the world's nastiest illnesses derive from bugs that have leapt back and forth between people and their animals. Humans caught smallpox from their cows, influenza from their fowl, bubonic plague from the rats who lived in their houses. By the time of Columbus, the Old World was wracked by endemic contagions of dozens of deadly diseases, which kept life expectancies low and infant mortality rates high. Largely due to the ravages of disease (especially bubonic plague), the population of Europe in 1492 was lower than it had been 200 years earlier. Jared Diamond, best-selling author of Guns, Germs, and Steel, popularized the notion that European imperialism succeeded due to European advantages over other people in the areas of, well†¦ guns, germs, and steel. As far as colonization of the Americas is concerned, though, guns and steel were all but immaterial. The germs alone were enough. The word â€Å"conquistador† evokes memories of Cortes and Pizarro, but in truth the greatest conquistadors of the New World were smallpox and influenza—not to mention typhoid, cholera, tuberculosis, measles, scarlet fever, yellow fever, and malaria. Every one of these diseases, endemic to the Old World, spread to the Americas after 1492 with catastrophic effects for indigenous people there. (In return, the Americas afflicted the Old World with only one major affliction—syphilis. And even that is in dispute; scientists and historians remain divided on whether the disease truly originated in the New World. Old World diseases—lethal enough already on their continents of origin—became exponentially more dangerous in America, where they spread as virgin-soil epidemics among native populations totally lacking in immunities to them. (In Europe and Africa, countless children died from diseases like smallpox and malaria; those w ho survived, however, built up antibodies that inoculated them against adult infection. Since no Native Americans had ever encountered these diseases, none built up any immunity, leaving entire populations as â€Å"virgin soil† for infection. When the diseases struck, entire communities could be felled in a matter of days. ) Virgin-soil epidemics are among the deadliest phenomena ever experienced by humankind, and the death toll of the pandemics unleashed in the Americas by the Columbian Exchange far exceeded that of history's most famous virgin-soil epidemic, Europe's Black Death (an outbreak of bubonic plague in the 1340s). The cataclysmic effects of virgin-soil epidemics struck Native American societies just as they faced the threat of European invasion, decisively reducing the natives' capability to resist colonization. It is worth noting that devastating smallpox pandemics struck both the Aztecs and Incas just before their respective disastrous encounters with Cortes and Pizarro. ) Mississippian Mystery: De Soto and La Salle Perhaps the most arresting evidence of the consequences of virgin-soil epidemics came from the entrada** of Hernando *de* Soto, who led an army of conquistadors deep into the North American mainl and in 1539. De Soto hoped to find gold in the country that today comprises the southeastern United States; he ended up leading more than 600 men and hundreds of livestock on a four-year wild goose chase. In the end, his mission proved to be a fiasco—two-thirds of the men, including De Soto himself, died without ever finding a trace of gold—but De Soto's expedition powerfully illustrated the destructive force of smallpox, which apparently spread from his pigs to the people of the Mississippi Valley. Before leaving, De Soto's men recorded their impressions of the Mississippian people—they found dense settlements, with large villages and cities often sited within view of each other, separated by carefully tended fields of corn. After De Soto left the country, no European returned for more than 100 years. When the French explorer La Salle canoed down the Mississippi Valley in 1682, he found very few villages, no cities, and no fields of corn, but instead a landscape almost devoid of people and overrun by buffalo* (which De Soto had apparently never encountered). * In the 140 years that passed between the explorations of De Soto and La Salle, something transformed the Mississippi Valley from a densely populated Indian heartland into a virtually deserted wilderness. That something was almost certainly smallpox. The landscape encountered by La Salle was not, as he believed, a primeval wilderness, but rather an ecosystem that had recently experienced the sudden destruction of its keystone species—Indians. The buffalo wandered in because few Indians survived to hunt them. * * From Canada to the Tierra del Fuego, the indige*Epidemic* Disease and Manifest Destiny Neither Europeans nor Indians had any scientific understanding of the ecological processes that had so profoundly shaped their encounter. Both groups understood phenomena like agricultural abundance or epidemic disease in spiritual terms, as the respective blessings or punishments of their gods. Thus, the undeniable facts of the European-American encounter—that Indians seemed to be wasting away, opening bounteous lands to the newcomers from across the Atlantic—acquired deep cultural and ideological meanings in the minds of the colonists who eventually founded the United States. Not understanding the scientific processes at work, Anglo-Americans interpreted their ongoing good fortune as proof of God's special endorsement of their nation. For example, John Winthrop—Puritan elder and first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony—perceived divine blessing of the colonists' venture in the Indians' Great Dying: â€Å"For the natives,† Winthrop wrote, â€Å"they are neere all dead of Small poxe, so as the Lord hathe cleared our title to what we possess. 3 A Frenchman on La Salle's voyage down the Mississippi captured the idea even more bluntly: â€Å"Touching these savages, there is a thing I cannot omit to remark to you, it is that it appears visibly that God wishes that they yield their place to new peoples. â€Å"4 Through generations of successful colonization—in which the descendents of Europe built some of the world's healthiest and wealthiest societies in the lands vacated by the Indians—white Americans' conviction tha t their presence in America had received a special blessing from God only grew stronger. The cultural and ideological origins of â€Å"manifest destiny† and â€Å"American exceptionalism† can be found in the exceptionally uneven terms of the Columbian Exchange. Only recently have we become fully aware that the special advantages enjoyed by Europeans in their encounter with Indians were bestowed less by God than by ecology. nous inhabitants of the Americas suffered similar calamities, the Columbian Exchange of diseases ravaging Indian communities and facilitating the European takeover of the hemisphere. Top of Form