Historyspeaking topic
When the potato arrived in Europe from the Inca lands, it was long rejected as a 'devil's plant'; to make people love it, kings set up ostentatiously guarded potato fields with fake sentries and provoked people into stealing from them. If a food that would save millions from starvation first had to be made to look forbidden and desirable, do we really choose our own desires?
— Parmentier and the spread of the potato
practice with this topic
Set the timer (5-30 min), take 20 seconds of prep if you like, start talking. Jot your thoughts onto the sticky-note board.
similar topics
- What was daily life actually like before the internet, and what did we lose?
- Magna Carta limited the power of the king in 1215. Let's discuss how a single document came to be seen, centuries later, as the foundation of constitutional democracy.
- Napoleon was not short for his time; he was of average height. What made him 'tiny' was British propaganda and the confusion between French and English units of measurement. If a person's image in history depends less on their actual body than on their enemy's pen, whose words are we really repeating when we call him 'the short dictator' today?
- How did the Byzantine Empire manage to survive for a thousand years? Let's talk about the role of Constantinople's walls, diplomacy, and wealth.
- Was ancient Athenian democracy really a democracy? Let's compare a system that excluded women, slaves, and foreigners with our understanding of democracy today.