Ms. Lederer: A.P. Human Geography (APHG) Summer Assignment Welcome to one of the most relevant learning experiences of your high school career! Many students take this course without any real understanding of what geography is, exactly something to do with maps?? While maps are one of a geographer s many useful tools, geography is so much more than memorization of place locations. AP Human Geography is sometimes described as the why of where. It is the systematic study of patterns and processes that have shaped human understanding, use, and alteration of Earth s surface. Simply put, geographers seek to explain why the world is the way it is today, and why things happen where they happen. To quote Hans Rosling (you ll get to know him in this course), Pretty neat, huh? Guidelines and Formatting Requirements: Always type all assignments unless otherwise instructed. Use a professional font, such as Calibri or Times New Roman, in 12-pt size, 1 margins, and single spaced. Your summer work must be your own unique creation. Copying from any source written work, online resources, or a classmate is plagiarism and will result in an automatic zero for the entire assignment. Please feel free to contact me over the summer with any questions: starr.lederer@browardschools.com Your Summer Assignment Choose ONE of the following books: A History of the World in 6 Glasses or An Edible History of Humanity both by Tom Standage. I ve included a summary of each book. Both are good and provide an insight into World History from different perspectives: beverages or food. Both books, however, go into all of the themes of AP Human Geography: Nature, Population, Migration, Culture, Politics, Economics, Agriculture and Urban. You will be responsible for completing questions and a map activity that correlate to each book. The books are available at the Broward County Public Library, Barnes and Noble and Amazon (there are new and used options available). Due Date: September 4 Summary: A History of the World in 6 Glasses by Tom Standage From beer to Coca-Cola, the six drinks that have helped shape human history. Throughout human history, certain drinks have done much more than just quench thirst. As Tom Standage relates with authority and charm, six of them have had a surprisingly pervasive influence on the course of history, becoming the defining drink during a pivotal historical period. A History of the World in 6 Glasses tells the story of humanity from the Stone Age to the 21st century through the lens of beer, wine, spirits, coffee, tea, and cola. Beer was first made in the Fertile Crescent and by 3000 B.C.E. was so important to Mesopotamia and Egypt that it was used to pay wages. In ancient Greece wine became the main export of her vast seaborne trade, helping spread Greek culture abroad. Spirits such as brandy and rum fueled the Age of Exploration, fortifying seamen on long voyages and oiling the pernicious slave trade. Although coffee originated in the Arab world, it stoked revolutionary thought in Europe during the Age of Reason, when coffeehouses became centers of intellectual exchange. And hundreds of years after the Chinese began drinking tea, it became especially popular in Britain, with far-reaching effects on British foreign policy. Finally, though carbonated drinks were invented in 18th-century Europe they became a 20th-century phenomenon, and Coca-Cola in particular is the leading symbol of globalization. For Tom Standage, each drink is a kind of technology, a catalyst for advancing culture by which he demonstrates the intricate interplay of different civilizations. You may never look at your favorite drink the same way again. Summary: An Edible History of Humanity by Tom Standage Throughout history, food has acted as a catalyst for social change, political organization, geopolitical competition, industrial development, military conflict and economic expansion. An Edible History of Humanity is a pithy,
entertaining account of how a series of changes caused, enabled or influence by food has helped to shape and transform societies around the world. The first civilizations were built on barley and wheat in the Near East, millet and rice in Asia, corn and potatoes in the Americas. Why farming created a strictly ordered social hierarchy instead of the egalitarianism of hunter-gathers is, as Tom Standage reveals, as interesting as the details of the complex cultures that emerged, eventually interconnected by commerce. Trade in exotic spices spawned the age of exploration and colonization of the New World. Food s influence over the course of history extends into modern times. In the late eighteenth century Britain s solution to food shortages was to industrialize and import food rather than grow it. Food helped to determine the outcome of wars: Napoleon s rise and fall was intimately connected with his ability to feed his vast armies. In the twentieth century, Communist leaders employed food as an ideological weapon, resulting in the death of starvation of millions in the Soviet Union and China. And today the foods we choose in the supermarket connect us to global debates about trade, development, the environment, and the adoption of new technologies. Drawing from many fields, including genetics, archaeology, anthropology, ethno-botany and economics----and invoking food as a special form of technology----an Edible History of Humanity is an appetizing and fully satisfying discourse on the sweep of human history. https://www.bookbrowse.com/bb_briefs/detail/index.cfm/ezine_preview_number/3508/an-edible-history-of-humanity An Edible History of Humanity Questions: Chapter 1: The Invention of Farming 1. Farming emerged from what three places and time periods to spread throughout the world to become mankind s chief means of food production? 2. What factors led to farming? 3. What made maize attractive to man as a farming crop? Chapter 2: The Roots of Modernity 4. Give three reasons why the adoption of farming was the worst mistake in the history of the human race. 5. What were some of the elements that contributed to the evolution of sedentism and farming? 6. How did farming and domestication spread almost everywhere across the world? 7. Why is farming and domestication profoundly unnatural? Chapter 3: Food, Wealth, and Power 8. How did powerful leaders, such as big men, emerge and how did they end up in control of the agricultural surplus? 9. What is some of the archaeological evidence that shows how the process of social stratification may have worked and why? Chapter 4: Follow the Food 10. Why did the Incas closely link agriculture to warfare? 11. How did the farmers, their rulers, and the gods all depend upon each other for their survival? 12. Explain how wealth and poverty seemed to be inevitable consequences of agriculture and civilization. Chapter 5: Splinters of Paradise 13. Why were people willing to pay such high prices for spices? 14. Explain why the book states, the pursuit of spices is the third way in which food remade the world. 15. What was the secret of the seasonal trade winds and why was it important to the spice trade? 16. When and where did overland trade routes occur? What were they later called? 17. What things in addition to food and spices were exchanged along trade routes? 18. Who was Ibn Battuta? Who was Zheng He? 19. What was the Muslim Curtain? 20. Why did European explorers seek radical new sea routes to the East?
Chapter 6: Seeds of Empire 21. Explain the connection between Columbus and the search for spices. 22. What foodstuffs did the Americas provide to the rest of the world? 23. In the 1420 s, what was the goal of Infante Henrique of Portugal (Prince Henry the Navigator) for exploring the west coast of Africa? 24. How did the Portuguese obtain spices on their voyages to India? How successful were they? 25. How did the Dutch East India Company, or VOC, conduct their spice trade and how did they treat the native populations where the spices were found? 26. Why is the legacy of the spice trade mixed? Chapter 7: New World, New Foods 27. How did the exchange and redistribution of food crops remake the world, in particular those parts of it around the Atlantic Ocean? 28. In the 17th and 18th centuries, what were the overlapping triangles of trade? 29. What did Adam Smith, the Scottish philosopher and economist, say about the potato in his book The Wealth of Nations? 30. What was Thomas Malthus theory on the connection between the population and food supply? Chapter 8: The Steam Engine and the Potato 31. How did Great Britain become the first industrialized country in the world? 32. What was the impact of the potato famine in Ireland in the 1840 s? 33. What is the connection between free trade and the repeal of the Corn Laws in Britain? 34. Compare the Neolithic revolution to the Industrial Revolution in 18th and 19th century Britain. Chapter 9: The Fuel of War 35. Why was food literally the fuel of war? 36. Why did Alexander the Great, and later Rome, conquer lands around the Mediterranean and territory to the north bordered by rivers? 37. How could food be used both offensively (as a weapon) and defensively? 38. How did the British failure to provide adequate supplies of food to their armies during the American Revolutionary War contribute to its defeat? 39. Why did Napoleon s invasion of Russia in 1812 turn out to be such a disaster? 40. Discuss Nicolas Appert s discovery. How did this process change the food supplies of the military and civilian populations? 41. What was the second invention in the 19th century that transformed military logistics? Why? Chapter 10: Food Fight 42. Where was Berlin located? Why was it necessary for the Western nations start the Berlin Airlift? 43. The Cold War was fought between whom and with what? 44. What was Stalin s plan called Collectivization? Why didn t it work? 45. Describe the horrific results of Stalin s plan. 48. What was the result of the Great Leap Forward? How did it get resolved? 46. Explain Russian Yegor Gaidar s point of view that the regime disintegrated in large part because it could not feed its people. 47. Explain how the purchasing of food in this contemporary world can have both commercial and political implications. Chapter 11: Feeding the World 48. Why was the 1909 development of ammonia significant? 49. What is the Green Revolution? What are its plusses and minuses? 50. What problems developed as a result of the increase in population in the latter half of the 19th century?
51. Why did farmers need to adopt new dwarf varieties of grains? 52. What did the combination of nitrogen rich fertilizer and dwarf varieties lead to? Chapter 12: Paradoxes of the Future 53. Explain and give examples of the connection between agricultural production and industrialization in developing areas. 54. Discuss the various factors that influence population growth. 55. What are some of the problems with the Green Revolution? 56. Why did food prices rise sharply in 2007 and 2008? 57. What are the parts of the second Green Revolution or the doubly green revolution? A History of the World in 6 Glasses Questions: BEER 1. How is the discovery of beer linked to the growth of the first civilization? 2. What does this history of beer in the ancient world tell us about the early civilizations? 3. What sources does the author use to gather his information on the use of beer? 4. What were some of the uses of beer by ancient cultures? Nourishment? Ritual? Religion? 5. How did beer civilize man, according to Standage? 6. What is the relationship between beer and writing, commerce and health? WINE 7. How did the use of wine differ from that of beer in ancient Greece and Rome? 8. How was wine used by the Greeks? 9. How and why did wine develop into a form of a status symbol in Greece? 10. How was the wine consumed? What does this tell us about the ancient Greek culture? 11. How did the use of wine in Roman culture differ from that of ancient Greece? 12. What is the relationship between wine and empire, medicine and religion? SPIRITS 13. What is the origin of distilled spirits? 14. What is the connection between spirits and colonization? 15. How was the production of spirits connected to slavery? 16. What role did spirits play on the high seas? 17. In the 18th Century, how did the spirits help Britain have a more superior navy than France? 18. Why were spirits an important staple in Colonial America? 19. How did rum play a role in the American Revolution? 20. What were the negative effects/uses of spirits? COFFEE 21. Who did Europeans get coffee from and how did it spread to Europe? 22. Why was it so important to Europe s development that many peoples beverage of choice witched from alcohol to coffee? 23. Describes coffee s effects on the global balance of power 24. How did coffee play a pivotal role in the scientific revolution? 25. How did coffee play a pivotal role in the French revolution? TEA 26. When did tea first become a mainstream drink in Asia? In Europe? 27. How did the consumption of tea in Europe differ from how it was consumed in Chine or Japan?
28. If tea arrived in Europe around the same time as when coffee did, why did it not find the immediate success that coffee had? 29. How did tea transform English society? 30. How was tea integral part of the Industrial Revolution? 31. What was the connection between tea and politics? 32. How was tea connected to the opium trade and the opium war of 1839-1842? 33. What role did the tea trade and production play in the British rule over India? COCA-COLA 34. What was the origin of coke? 35. How was this beverage used medicinally and what were the additives? 36. What was the relationship of coke and World War II? 37. How was coke thought of by communist during the Cold War? 38. What is meant by globalization in a bottle? 39. How did Coca-Cola materialize into an American Value? How did this help and hurt Coca-Cola? EPILOGUE-WATER 35. Describe how the scientific advancements of the 19th century brought the history of beverage full circle. 36. Which water s quality is more tightly controlled-tap or bottled? 37. How many people have no access to safe water today? 38. How has access to water affected international relations? Grading Rubric: Objective Points Awarded Comments Questions: Questions are answered in complete sentences and include citation of information/answers (50) Maps includes: Labeled places as stated in the book by continent (30) A clear key or legend of the movement of food/beverage stated in the book by continent (20) /50 /50