Qatar: The Locust and the Desert

Sweden: The Swede Who Named the Natural World

Why did a restless boy from a rural Swedish parsonage end up giving a name to every living thing on Earth — and how did he build a system so durable that it still runs as the operating system of modern biology, long after the theology behind it was overturned? How did the invention of the index card, a near-fatal journey through Lapland, and three years in the Dutch botanical gardens produce twelve thousand species names and a framework that has since scaled to potentially a trillion? And what do we do with the fact that the same man who placed humans in the animal kingdom also used his taxonomic authority to give scientific credibility to racial hierarchy? Join John and a special co-host as they tell the story of Sweden and Carl Linnaeus — the apostles he sent around the world, the specimens that ended up in Piccadilly, and the system that names everything... ---------- In Sponsorship with Cornell University: Dyson Cornell SC Johnson College of Business ----------- Join the History of Fresh Produce Club [https://app.theproduceindustrypodcast.com/access/] for ad-free listening, bonus episodes, book discounts and access to an exclusive chatroom community. Support us! * Share this episode with your friends * Give a 5-star rating * Write a review ----------- Subscribe to our biweekly newsletter here [https://historyoffreshproduce.substack.com/] for extra stories related to recent episodes, book recommendations, a sneak peek of upcoming episodes and more. ----------- Instagram, TikTok, Threads: @historyoffreshproduce Email: historyoffreshproduce@gmail.com [historyoffreshproduce@gmail.com]

Japan: The Emperor's Sacred Paddy

Why does the Emperor of Japan — head of state of one of the most technologically advanced nations on Earth — wade into a rice paddy every year to plant seedlings by hand, and harvest them in autumn by torchlight? How did a grain that arrived from the Korean peninsula three thousand years ago become not just the foundation of Japanese civilisation, but the source of imperial legitimacy, the unit of feudal taxation, and the subject of the world's first commodity futures market? And what does it mean that turtle shell divination was used in 2019 to select the rice fields for a new Emperor's enthronement ceremony? Join John as he tells the story of Japan and rice — the sun goddess, the koku economy, and the three-thousand-year thread connecting the first Yayoi farmers to the Imperial Palace paddy in Tokyo... ---------- In Sponsorship with J&K Fresh. The customs broker who is your fruit and veggies’ personal bodyguard. Learn more here [https://www.jkfresh.com/]! ----------- Join the History of Fresh Produce Club [https://app.theproduceindustrypodcast.com/access/] for ad-free listening, bonus episodes, book discounts and access to an exclusive chatroom community. Support us! 1. Share this episode with your friends 2. Give a 5-star rating 3. Write a review ----------- Subscribe to our biweekly newsletter here [https://historyoffreshproduce.substack.com/] for extra stories related to recent episodes, book recommendations, a sneak peek of upcoming episodes and more. ----------- Instagram, TikTok, Threads: @historyoffreshproduce Email: historyoffreshproduce@gmail.com [historyoffreshproduce@gmail.com]

Iraq: How Irrigation Destroyed the Civilization That Invented It

Why did the civilisation that invented writing, cities, and law destroy the very soil that made it possible — and why are sixty to seventy percent of those same fields still poisoned by salt today? How did two scholars at the University of Chicago, reading cuneiform grain records from 2400 BC, discover that the fall of Sumer was not caused by war or plague but by a slow, invisible chemical process that no amount of ingenuity could stop? And what does it mean that the Sumerians could see it happening, recorded it meticulously on clay tablets, and kept irrigating anyway? John tells the story of Iraq and the land between the rivers — the white crust on the fields of Uruk, the dying date palms of Basra, and the most quietly devastating title in the history of academic writing... ---------- In Sponsorship with Cornell University: Dyson Cornell SC Johnson College of Business ----------- Join the History of Fresh Produce Club [https://app.theproduceindustrypodcast.com/access/] for ad-free listening, bonus episodes, book discounts and access to an exclusive chatroom community. Support us! * Share this episode with your friends * Give a 5-star rating * Write a review ----------- Subscribe to our biweekly newsletter here [https://historyoffreshproduce.substack.com/] for extra stories related to recent episodes, book recommendations, a sneak peek of upcoming episodes and more. ----------- Instagram, TikTok, Threads: @historyoffreshproduce Email: historyoffreshproduce@gmail.com [historyoffreshproduce@gmail.com]

Paraguay: The Yerba Mate Jesuit Empire

Why did a Jesuit republic of 140,000 people in the subtropical forests of South America — with its own armed militia, its own printing presses, its own Baroque composers, and the only successful mate plantation in colonial history — get destroyed by a riot about hats? How did the Guaraní and the Society of Jesus together solve a domestication mystery that no one else could crack, and why did that knowledge vanish the moment the priests were expelled? Join John as he tells the story of Paraguay and yerba mate — the Jesuit utopia, the bandeirante raiders, the angel faces carved in subtropical sandstone, and the leaf that built a kingdom... ---------- In Sponsorship with J&K Fresh. The customs broker who is your fruit and veggies’ personal bodyguard. Learn more here [https://www.jkfresh.com/]! ----------- Join the History of Fresh Produce Club [https://app.theproduceindustrypodcast.com/access/] for ad-free listening, bonus episodes, book discounts and access to an exclusive chatroom community. Support us! 1. Share this episode with your friends 2. Give a 5-star rating 3. Write a review ----------- Subscribe to our biweekly newsletter here [https://historyoffreshproduce.substack.com/] for extra stories related to recent episodes, book recommendations, a sneak peek of upcoming episodes and more. ----------- Instagram, TikTok, Threads: @historyoffreshproduce Email: historyoffreshproduce@gmail.com [historyoffreshproduce@gmail.com]

DR Congo: The King Who Owned a Country

How did a shipping clerk in Antwerp discover one of the greatest crimes of the nineteenth century simply by paying attention to which ships were carrying what — and why did it take a decade of missionary photographs, a British consul's report, and Mark Twain's pen to force the world to look? Why did the invention of the pneumatic tyre turn a wild Congo rubber vine into the engine of an atrocity that halved the population of an entire country? And what made Leopold II's Congo Free State different from every other colonial horror? Join John and Patrick as they tell the story of the Democratic Republic of Congo — King Leopold's rubber state, the severed hands, the missionaries with cameras, and the first international human rights movement that finally forced the world to look... ---------- In Sponsorship with J&K Fresh. The customs broker who is your fruit and veggies’ personal bodyguard. Learn more here [https://www.jkfresh.com/]! ----------- Join the History of Fresh Produce Club [https://app.theproduceindustrypodcast.com/access/] for ad-free listening, bonus episodes, book discounts and access to an exclusive chatroom community. Support us! 1. Share this episode with your friends 2. Give a 5-star rating 3. Write a review ----------- Subscribe to our biweekly newsletter here [https://historyoffreshproduce.substack.com/] for extra stories related to recent episodes, book recommendations, a sneak peek of upcoming episodes and more. ----------- Instagram, TikTok, Threads: @historyoffreshproduce Email: historyoffreshproduce@gmail.com [historyoffreshproduce@gmail.com]