Staking out American 'food history' is a promising way to change perceptions about the place and importance of the 'environment' in American history. Food connects to the mainstream of 'American history,' and puts standard narratives in a new light: think of food and native America; establishing colonial societies; protests over tea and trade relations swirling through the American Revolution in the economic and political context of an Atlantic world; slaves growing rice and tobacco and the role of food in fighting the Civil War; the long westward conquest and the wholesale reordering of landscapes to support both a new regime of property and food production; immigration, foodways, identity, ethnicity and America as a Melting Pot; progressivism, home economics, and food reform; industrialization and corporate capitalism from Swift to Sunkist and Monsanto; the rise of tourism and consumer culture - especially consumer culture.
excerpted from:
Douglas Cazaux Sackman (Editor)
Wiley-Blackwell, 2014
Outrider Reading GroupThe Nature Pages
Nature Writing and Natural Histories
History and American West Titles
