From Dawn to Decadence by Jacques Barzun (Part 4)

Cross Section: The View From Madrid Around 1540

I really enjoyed this chapter. During this time, the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, made Madrid his hometown. Barzun describes how it grew from a small village with bad air and bad water to a thriving metropolis of 30 000.

This chapter also describes the discovery of the New World and all the controversy surrounding its initial colonization.

Did you know that the French word for Turkey (the tasty fowl, not the country), Dinde originally had an apostrophe, like this: d'Inde, which means 'From India'?

And that the French, who are famous for their French Fries, were among the last European countries to import potatoes from the New World because they thought they were poisonous because they're in the same family as Nightshades.

Also, slavery was actually outlawed by the Holy Roman Emperor even before the discovery of the New World, but the Spanish colonists in Central America enslaved thousands of the natives anyways and got away with it because it was so difficult to enforce that law from three thousand miles away. Then the European colonists brought sugarcane to the New World and found that it grew taller and faster there than it did wherever it originally came from, so they started colonies based around plantations. And then, when they found that the native Americans weren't hardy enough (they couldn't cope with the rigours of slavery and vast numbers of them had the audacity to die before they could turn a profit) so the colonists started importing slaves from Africa. The English, who controlled the North Atlantic with their powerful navy, and huge sections of the coast of Africa, saw how lucrative the slave trade was and got into it with both feet and eventually dominated it for centuries.

After the Seven Years' War (also known as La Guerre de la Conquete in Quebec, The French and Indian War in the United States, The Third Carnatic War in India, The Third Silesian War in Austria and Prussia and the first World War by Winston Churchill (who was not alive at the time)) all of France's holdings in what is now Canada was traded to Britain for two sugarcane islands in the Caribbean. Sure puts Canada's worth in perspective, doesn't it?

I really enjoyed this chapter because it was descriptive instead of philosophical. It wasn't about themes, it was about history.

Not that I mind themes so much, I like reading about themes and studying them and writing about them, as you may have noticed, but it's also easy to get bored reading about themes because it's more philosophical and can get kind of heavy. So if I'm not engaged it can get kind of dull. You know?

Anyways, this chapter was not like that. It was great. The next chapter is The Eutopians and I'm looking forward to it. Look for my short comment sometime towards the end of August when I'm settled in at Thunder Bay... (yikes.) Because I know that you (all three of you) look forward to my deep and insightful comments on Barzun's incredibly hyped book. (Yes, that was sarcastic.) Now go read Janelle's blog.