Spice Wars Study Guide
“He who controls the spice controls the universe.” — Frank Herbert, Dune (1965) It came to me in a flash last summer . Why the United States of America had spent the past two decades trying to control Afghanistan. Why Big Pharma was pushing the vaccines. It was the spice. The opium of the poppy fields. The opioids of Big Pharma. Everything was about controlling the spice. And always had been. Once upon a time, there was a Silk Road. You’ve heard of it I’m sure. The caravan road across the middle of the great Eurasian continent, linking the treasures of the Orient with the markets of the West. Except throughout the Middle Ages, the markets in the West weren’t much to speak of. A few Italian city-states. A few burghers in the north. Back in high school, I did a presentation about the fairs where they sold their spices. I even wore a costume—a hat that I got at the Renaissance Faire north of Houston, the autumn before I started college there...
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Frighteningly, I think sometimes it works *just that way*...
ReplyDeleteNice, but is the polemic really inevitable? I can't help but think of the difference between A. G. Dickens, Euan Cameron, and Eamon Duffy, on the one hand, and Diarmaid MacCulloch on the other. The former are engaged in the polemic (on different sides), while MacCulloch, I think, is beyond it. But then, his position as a gay, ex-Anglican, agnostic is unusual and, as he admits, contributes to his historiographical position. (Well, to be precise, it's the ex-Anglican and agnostic aspects that he admits as influences.)
ReplyDelete@Brian: Perhaps we don't always perceive it as polemic, but surely writing as a ex-anything suggests a particular interpretative position. I've tried to articulate a bit more clearly what's bothering me in today's post. Maybe it's that I don't buy anybody else's position but can't yet articulate mine.
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