Feeding the People : The Politics of the Potato

Author: Earle, Rebecca (University of Warwick)

General & world history

Published on 25 June 2020 by CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS in the United Kingdom.

Hardback | 308 pages, Worked examples or Exercises; 15 Halftones, black and white; 18 Line drawings, black and
158 x 234 x 27 | 584g

Potatoes are the world's fourth most important food crop, yet they were unknown to most of humanity before 1500. Feeding the People traces the global journey of this popular foodstuff from the Andes to everywhere. The potato's global history reveals the ways in which our ideas about eating are entangled with the emergence of capitalism and its celebration of the free market. It also reminds us that ordinary people make history in ways that continue to shape our lives. Feeding the People tells the story of how eating became part of statecraft, and provides a new account of the global spread of one of the world's most successful foods.