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Dr. James McCann is Professor Emeritus of History at Boston University. Dr. McCann’s research and teaching interests include agricultural and ecological history of Africa, Ethiopia, and the Horn of Africa, field research methods in African studies, and the history of food/cuisine in Africa and the Atlantic world. He is the author of books like Stirring the Pot: A History of African Cuisine; Maize and Grace: A History of Africa’s Encounter with a New World Crop; People of the Plow: An Agricultural History of Ethiopia; and From Poverty to Famine in Northeast Ethiopia: Rural History, 1900-1995.

In this episode, we focus on Maize and Grace. We talk about maize and its main traits as a crop. We discuss how it spread across the globe, and particularly, how it got to Africa. We talk about the role of politics and economics in the spread of maize across Africa, and we get into the illustrative example of southern Africa, and how politics, science, and race intermingled there. We discuss the impact of maize on Africa’s biodiversity and the health and nutrition of African people. We talk about how colonialism influenced the spread of crops across the globe. We discuss the causal relationship between climate and history. Finally, we discuss the work of Jared Diamond, and the idea of geographical determinism.

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