Hi there. I'm off this week.

Apparently we're more productive at work after a good holiday.

So I'm counting this Caribbean rum distillery tour as professional development.

Yours calling.

Take your holiday as seriously as British Airways Holidays Take Your Holiday, Atul Protected.

Hello and welcome back to Legacy.

Last time we looked at the humble potato and saw how a crop from the Andes

changed societies all over the world after its introduction, how it made people taller, it made

cities bigger, it reduced conflict in some places, and it helped spur the industrial revolution,

no less.

So it all sounds like quite good news.

But today we're going to look at how it also so disaster and profound suffering

and also how potatoes lie behind the growth of the greatest empire of the modern age.

So it's a fantastic story.

The potato, like we said,

when we started after, it's a gift that keeps giving, even for people who are not

that interested in eating potatoes and don't even like them. It's such a different lens for looking

at history, which is so often told, not just from a human perspective, but from the perspective

of the most elite, well-known, often privileged men historically.

So I think it's super refreshing to look at history through the lens of the humble potato,

although it's actually making me laugh, Peter, because you wrote here on my script.

Plus, it tastes so good.

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