The Butterfly Effect

April 27, 2020
Historian Melillo (Strangers on Familiar Soil) devotes this intriguing and comprehensive work to “the long arc of productive relationships between insects and people.” The first of the book’s two sections, “Metamorphoses,” examines “how various cultures have come to understand our six-legged cousins over the past three millennia” and relied on them for certain basic goods. There is silk, for instance, which is produced by silkworms and became the driving force behind the Byzantine empire after the emperor had several eggs smuggled out of China. But there is also shellac, “a gummy substance manufactured by bugs,” whose earliest recorded use Melillo finds in the 4th-century BCE Sanskrit epic the Mahabharata, and which, more recently, provided the material for the first phonograph records. In the book’s second part, “Hives of Modernity,” he shifts to the here and now, with discussions of global agriculture and food security. In two especially worthwhile sections, he discusses how fruit flies have provided useful test cases for genetics, and how entomophagy—the eating of insects—has emerged as a promising nutritional, environmental, and even gastronomical practice. Melillo’s fascinating survey makes a persuasive argument that some of the world’s smallest animals are also “bottomless reservoirs of possibility.”

May 15, 2020
An exploration of how insects have influenced every corner of the world. "As of 2020," writes environmental studies professor Melillo, "there are 1.3 billion insects for every human on the planet." That alone makes them a vital presence in our lives. In this succinct, colorful contribution to entomological literature, the author also reminds us that they are dominant actors in the processes of reproduction and decay as well as important players throughout human history. While Melillo doesn't completely ignore the destructive aspects of our interactions with insects--from insects as vectors to illness to the harmful use of insecticides--he spends more time examining how "insects make many of the substances that pervade our daily lives: fabrics, dyes, furniture varnishes, food addi-tives, high-tech materials, cosmetics, and pharmaceutical ingredients." The author looks at the long, diverse historical traditions involved with honey and the making of "iron gall ink," an "indelible, waterproof substance [that has] served as Europe's most important ink for the past two millennia." He also discusses the production of shellac, the resinous, amber-colored secretion of the tiny lac bug that has been used as a coating for wooden products--not least of which were the violins of Antonio Stradivari--as well as a key ingredient in pioneering phonographic discs. Silk is an even more ancient product of insect industriousness, and Melillo draws a captivating picture of China's 5,000-year-old sericulture industry and the extraordinary structural qualities of the silk thread. The cultural significance of the color red makes for especially good reading about the cochineal insect, the rare source of a peerless red pigment. The author also tells entertaining tales of the role of fruit flies in biomedical research; bees, pollination, and colony collapse disorder; and the future of entomophagy, "the eating of insects." A taut, vibrant story of awesome creatures and how humans have found countless ingenious uses for them.

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July 1, 2020

Following the "long arc of productive relationships," Melillo (history, environmental studies, Amherst Coll.; Strangers on Familiar Soil) examines the intertwined histories of humans and insects, showing first how insect-derived commodities with ancient origins (shellac, silk, and a deep-red dye called cochineal) became key trade goods in European imperial economies. The wide appeal of these substances, along with their varied applications, lasted until modern "Synthetic Age" substitutes--vinyl, nylon, and aniline dyes--were invented, and then had a resurgence when artificial products proved to be structurally inferior and even toxic. The book's second part examines how insects have contributed to modern life, as models for laboratory research, as crop pollinators, and as a potential food source. While our six-legged cousins are this work's indubitable stars, humans have strong supporting roles: e.g., as intrepid entomological explorers, cunning "biopirates," or groundbreaking scientists. Melillo also reveals how people far from the center of political and economic power in India, China, Mexico, and beyond became the "unofficial entomologists and informal botanists of the age of discovery." VERDICT Melillo introduces many little-known facts and moments of insight, making this an engaging and often surprising read for those interested in environmental history.--Robert Eagan, Windsor P.L., Ont.

Copyright 2020 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2020
Environmental historian (Strangers on Familiar Soil, 2015) Melillo pens a fascinating look at the role insects have played in human history, with a focus not on the depredations of pest insect species but on the stories of shellac, silk, and cochineal, insect-derived products which generated world commerce. Shellac is created by insects in India and Southeast Asia as tubes to protect the wingless females and their offspring and is purified to create such things as finishes on Stradivarius violins as well as furniture, early 78 rpm records, and waterproof cases. Silk is famous for inspiring early trade routes, as China held tight to the secrets of culturing silkworms and spinning their cocoons into fabric. Spain controlled the market on the cochineal insect, discovered in its Mexican colonies, as the source of the only true red pigments of the era, still used today to dye foods as Natural Red #4. Stories of intrigue and the breaking of lucrative monopolies mix with natural history to forge an unusual history intertwining human and insect life and full of aha moments.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)