Rebecca Earle, "Feeding the People: The Politics of the Potato" (Cambridge UP, 2020)
New Books in Science, Technology, and Society
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The History of the Potato
Am, i was wondering what a your cake was a this book is different from just a history of the potato. Partly because i was interested in how eating has become entangled with governing. We're now really familiar with the idea tat governments would give us nutrition advice. But that wasn't always something that states did. In fact, if you look at early european books on statecraft, there is nothing about what people ought to eat. There is concern about famine. Rulers since the beginning of recorded history have been aware that famine is politically destabilizing. That's why they were interested in looking for nutritious foods. I've tried to argue in this book that in the
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