Historical Spaghetti: You Can't Make This Stuff Up

(Credit: Pixabay, CC0) Writing histories of commodities has become incredibly popular within the historical profession. Mark Kurlansky is perhaps the best-known author of these types of histories— Salt , Cod , and Paper being three of his biggest successes. For academics, commodities are inextricably tied to studies of capitalism, trade, and transnationalism. But for pop history authors, the appeal lies in the money. These books can make their writers a pretty penny, but why? Bruce Robbins, a professor of English and comparative literature at Columbia University, suggests that the general public’s interest in commodity studies lies in the exotic origins of many modern products. He writes: “It adds value to remind a European smoker, however distant from religious observance, that Mayans considered tobacco ‘to be not only a form of pleasure, but also a ritual of immense significance.’” [1] (Credit:  W.W. Norton & Company ) Certainly, there are those who will scor...