> Harold Forsythe wrote:
>
> Expansion of grain and meat production capacity in the US, Canada,
> Argentina, Uruguay, and Australia dwarfs I am sure the expansion of food
> production capacity in the rest of the world from 1800-2006.
>
Two other points might be added here:

1) New World crops (e.g., maize, potatoes) were brought back to and
grown in the Old World  (Europe and Africa, in particular), where they
contributed significantly to population growth; and

2) New World resources generally (fisheries, timber, arable land,
minerals) were a real windfall for the colonizers and their home
countries, giving them a "leg up" in economic growth, when combined with
their technologies and entrepreneurship and exploitation of forced
labor. This is probably the main reason the "West" grew rich, and the
rest fell behind. (See Eric Jones, The European Miracle.)

Doug Deal

ps. I guess this goes beyond "haggis" per se... sorry.
>
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