Breakfast for Eight Billion. This is the first in the essay from Mann’s ‘how the system works’. I’ll save it again because it’s really fascinating. Look:

In the 1970s, much of South and East Asia were plagued by hunger. By the twenty-first century, Asians had an average of 30 percent more calories in their diet. Millions upon millions of families had more food, and with that came so much else. Seoul and Shanghai, Jaipur and Jakarta; shining skyscrapers, pricey hotels, traffic-choked streets blazing with neon: all are built atop a foundation of laboratory-bred rice … All this progress came at a cost. Farming 2.0 has transformed human life, but it has also wreaked environmental havoc.

Make a good reading list for a course somewhere.