Why We Should Eat Crickets. And Other Bug Ideas

In his new book, The Butterfly Effect: Insects and the Making of the Modern World, Edward Melillo calls some insects “little laboratories,” the various productions of which have supported our material world for millennia. The “butterfly effect” refers, of course, to chaos theory and a 1972 talk, from Edward Lorenz, on whether the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil could set off a tornado in Texas. The term captures interconnectivity among seemingly separate or disparate phenomena.

In , Melillo, a professor of history and environmental studies at Amherst College, brings up what meteorologists call “teleconnections.” For example, when El Nino storm events off the coast of Peru provoke extreme weather clear across the planet. He delves into connections like this involving nature, material goods, globalization, and science. While the synthetic age of the last century ushered in many alternatives to insect goo, there has been a more recent return to the genius of their toil, which has yet to improve on. Melillo traces the history of these bugs and their products as a query into modernity’s attainments and its discontents.