What on Earth is the Modern World-System? Foodgetting and Territory in the Modern Era and Beyond

Abstract

The promise, and dangers of genetic technologies have refocused the attention of city dwellers on an enduring reality of the human species: We are eating animals. We are breathing animals, too, forced (as we render them extinct) to notice that we exchange gases with plants. We are drinking animals, forced (as we render it toxic) to notice that the same water we drink and urinate in circulates through rivers, seas and clouds, and through the cells of all species. Until we pushed back the wild places of earth—that is, until very recently—humans were able to take oxygen, water, and the in?nitude of wild beings for granted. Not so with food. Only since our fascination with industry developed has human attention drifted away from the source and meaning of food.