If I had to show just one exhibit to make the case that we are the luckiest people who ever lived -- yes, even in this dismal moment -- it is this. The spice display at my supermarket. It's unremarkable, an ordinary object in most places around the world. That's the point. 1/

I went to buy paprika. Everyone knows paprika. Common spice, famous as a staple of Hungarian cuisine, which is where English got the word. How did the Hungarians get it? From the expanding Ottoman Empire. The Ottomans got it from Spain. Spain got it from central Mexico. 2/

So just in that little paprika jar I bought for a few dollars is the culmination of centuries of war, trade, and cultural exchange and invention. And every damned jar in that rack has a story like that. Hence my conclusion about how lucky we are. 3/

I can't leave this without mentioning the Venerable Bede. A Saxon monk in England's Dark Ages, Bede had a treasure of inestimable worth he carried for years. A little pouch of pepper. Yes, pepper. 4/