An Edible History Of Humanity

Throughout history food has done more than simply provide sustenance. It hasacted as a tool of social transformation political organization geopoliticalcompetit... » 

Throughout history food has done more than simply provide sustenance. It hasacted as a tool of social transformation political organization geopoliticalcompetition industrial development military conflict and economic expansion.An Edible History of Humanity is an account of how food has helped to shapeand transform societies around the world from the emergence of farming inChina by 7500 BCE to todays use of sugar cane and corn to make ethanol. Foodhas been a kind of technology a tool that has changed the course of humanprogress. It helped to found structure and connect together civilizationsworldwide and to build empires and bring about a surge in economic developmentthrough industrialization. Food has been employed as a military and ideologicalweapon. And today in the culmination of a process that has been going on forthousands of years the foods we choose in the supermarket connect us to globaldebates about trade development and the adoption of new technologies. Drawingfrom many fields including genetics archaeology anthropology ethnobotanyand economics the story of these fooddriven transformations is a fullysatisfying account of the whole of human history. «