Food in World History / Edition 1

by Jeffrey M. Pilcher

Overview

Providing a comparative and comprehensive study of culinary cultures and consumption throughout the world from ancient times to present day, this book examines the globalization of food and explores the political, social and environmental implications of our changing relationship with food.

Including numerous case studies from diverse societies and periods, Food in World History examines and focuses on:

• how food was used to forge national identities in Latin America
• the influence of Italian and Chinese Diaspora on the US and Latin America food culture
• how food was fractured along class lines in the French bourgeois restaurant culture and working class cafes
• the results of state intervention in food production
• how the impact of genetic modification and food crises has affected the relationship between consumer and product.

This concise and readable survey not only presents a simple history of food and its consumption, but also provides a unique examination of world history itself.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780415311465
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	10/18/2005
Series:	Themes in World History
Edition description:	Older Edition
Pages:	144
Product dimensions:	6.19(w) x 9.25(h) x (d)

About the Author

Jeffrey M. Pilcher is Professor of History at the University of Toronto. His books include ¡Que vivan los tamales! Food and the Making of Mexican Identity (1998), Planet Taco: A Global History of Mexican Food (2012), and the Oxford Handbook of Food History (2012), and he is a co-editor of the journal Global Food History.

Table of Contents

1. The First World Cuisine Part 1: The Ingredients of Change 2. The Columbian Exchange 3. Sugar, Spice, and Blood 4. Nouvelles Cuisines 5. Moral and Political Economies Part 2: The Taste of Modernity 6. The Industrial Kitchen 7. Cuisine and Nation-Building 8. Empires of Food 9. Migrant Cuisines Part 3: The Global Palate 10. Guns and Butter 11. The Green Revolution 12. McDonaldization and its Discontents 13. Culinary Pluralism

Editorial Reviews

'This is a solid little book that does an admirable job of incorporating a good deal of recent scholarship on food and foodways in a succinct and accessible fashion ... Food in World History is a welcome addition to the literature on early modern and modern food history, both for its conciseness and its solidly global approach.' - Eric R. Dursteler, Brigham Young University in Canadian Journal of History, spring-summer 2008

From the Publisher