2 - Fire history and the making of the modern world

Summary

“We got small guts and big heads because we could cook food. We went to the top of the food chain because we could cook landscapes. And we have become a geologic force because our fire technology has so evolved that we have begun to cook the planet.”

Stephen Pyne, “The Fire Age”

It would be a mistake to argue that fire explains all human history. It is not the only thing we need to focus on in trying to think through the implications of the Anthropocene for how we need to live in coming decades. Other things matter too: culture, politics and the new innovations of digital technologies. But when you dig into these other aspects of human accomplishment, somewhere in there fire has historically played a key role.

We are an urban species now; the majority of us live in cities and towns, and even those of us who don't live in cities rely on all sorts of things that urban civilization provides. Humans live scattered all over the planet, mostly on land, although a few of us are on the water on in the air at any one given moment! But wherever we live we rely on cooked food for our subsistence, and until the invention of microwaves, cooking relied on an external source of heat, and most of that heat was a matter of fire of some form or other.

Food is key to cultural life for most of us. Kitchens have stoves, and these places are key to social life. Fireplaces in many homes have long been the source of heat, the focus of family life. Hearth and home go together. Rituals of food preparation, family recipes and shared meals are all tied into the apparatus of heating to cook food. Cooking, as Stephen Pyne puts it, has changed us in numerous ways because it has dramatically altered what we can digest, allowing us, unlike most other species, to become omnivorous, able to eat all sorts of things.

Simple fires offer warmth and the ability to cook food. These two key parts of human life have effectively been moved from our bodies to the surrounding habitat. Our digestions are extended by cooking, allowing us to eat things from which we would otherwise have trouble gaining nourishment.