An Edible History of Humanity by Tom Standage

Written in the lucid, plain and rather stiff prose familiar to readers of the Economist, the book, like the magazine, is cogent, informative and insightful.Īn intense briefing on the making of our world from the vantage point of food history.Įlie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children. Advancements in biotechnology have proved a double-edged sword-a boon to the hungry and a bane to the environment. The Soviet Union collapsed because food was running out. The Industrial Revolution sprang from concerns over food. It was central to the spread of European colonial powers. Food was pivotal in the creation of social hierarchies in prehistoric cultures. He takes the long view to illuminate and contextualize such contemporary issues as genetically modified foods, the complex relationship between food and poverty, the local food movement, the politicization of food and the environmental outcomes of modern methods of agriculture. But history isn’t Standage’s only concern. That’s why he decided to write this meaty little volume, which “concentrates specifically on the intersections between food history and world history.” Tapping into fields as diverse as economics, anthropology, archaeology and genetics, the author asks a simple question: Which foods have had the most influence on shaping the world we live in today? Surprisingly, the list is short corn, wheat, rice and the potato have been predominant in agriculture and commerce. Writers have given close scrutiny to the histories of individual foods, cuisines and traditions, he notes, but have rarely looked at the history of food on a global scale.

That’s the contention of Economist business editor Standage ( A History of the World in Six Glasses, 2005, etc.).

An Edible History of Humanity by Tom Standage