Plant Diversity (The Green World) (repost)
Plant Diversity (The Green World) by Andrew Hipp
English | January 30, 2007 | ISBN: 0791089606 | Pages: 128 | PDF | 4 MB
English | January 30, 2007 | ISBN: 0791089606 | Pages: 128 | PDF | 4 MB
Human history has been strongly influenced by plants. The rise of agriculture in the Fertile Crescent of Mesopotamia brought previously scattered hunter-gatherers together into villages. Ever since, the availability of land and water for cultivating plants has been a major factor in determining the location of human settlements. World exploration and discovery was driven by the search for herbs and spices. The cultivation of New World crops—sugar, cotton, and tobacco—was responsible for the introduction of slavery to America, the human and social consequences of which are still with us.
The push westward by English colonists into the rich lands of the Ohio River valley in the mid-1700s was driven by the need to increase corn production and was a factor in precipitating the French and Indian War. The Irish potato famine in 1847 set in motion a wave of migration, mostly to North America, that would reduce the population of Ireland by half over the next 50 years.