| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 90.1

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 90.1 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Food Nations: Selling Taste in Consumer Societies. Ed. by Warren Belasco and Philip Scranton. (New York: Routledge, 2002. viii, 288 pp. Cloth, $85.00, ISBN 0-415-93076-6. Paper, $24.95, ISBN 0-415-93077-4.)

For teachers of nineteenth- and twentieth-century cultural and social history interested in incorporating interdisciplinary or multicultural perspectives in their course work, Food Nations, edited by Warren Belasco and Philip Scranton, will be a welcome addition. Originating in a 1999 Hagley Museum conference, "Food and Drink in Consumer Societies," this anthology offers a number of provocative insights from scholars in the humanities and social sciences. The various chapters examine ways in which the commodification of essential human needs is translated into political, economic, social, and cultural power.

Anchored in its main research discipline, history, the book is divided into five sections that shed light on the thesis "Food means power, power means food. And power means conflict" (p. 4). In essays on topics as diverse as wine consumption in France, the politics of baby food, the industrial production of tortillas in Mexico, and marketing the avocado, the authors demonstrate how essential historical context is to interdisciplinary and multi-cultural analyses of transnational consumerism. The book showcases the lively and trenchant contributions food studies can make to that discussion in chapters that offer historical perspective on topics such as food consumption and production, the formation of national cuisines, food as big business, and food, class, and ethnicity.

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