Food, Politics, and Society

Alejandro Colás is a Reader in International Relations at Birkbeck College, University of London, and is Director of the postgraduate program on International Security and Global Governance. He is the author of Empire and International Civil Society.   Jason Edwards is a Lecturer in Politics at Birkbeck College, University of London, and is Program Director of the MSc in Social and Political Theory. He is the author of The Radical Attitude and Modern Political Theory and the editor of Retrieving the Big Society.   Jane Levi is a Visiting Research Fellow in History at King’s College, London, and is King’s Mount Vernon Fellow 2017–18. She has contributed to numerous scholarly volumes on food including the Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets and the Sage Encyclopedia of Food Issues.   Sami Zubaida is Emeritus Professor of Politics and Sociology at Birkbeck College, University of London, and is a Fellow of Birkbeck College, Research Associate of the London Middle East Institute, and Professorial Research Associate of the Food Studies Centre at SOAS. His books include Islam, the People and the State: Political Ideas and Movements in the Middle East and A Taste of Thyme: Culinary Cultures of the Middle East.  

Preface and Acknowledgments vii
1. Introduction: Food, Drink, and Modern Social Theory 1
2. The Natural and the Social: The Agricultural Revolution 21
3. Exchange: The Columbian Exchange and Mercantile Empires 40
4. Culture: Ritual, Prohibition, and Taboo 58
5. Industrialization: Technology, Rationality, and Urbanization 76
6. The Public Sphere: Eating and Drinking in Public 94
7. The Modern State: Alcohol, Alcoholism, and Biopolitics 112
8. Identity: Nationalism, Ethnicity, and Religion 130
9. Distinction: Social Diff erence, Taste, and the Civilizing Process 150
10. Political Economy: The Global Food System 169
11. The Self: Food Choices and Public Health 187
12. Consumption: Media, the Domestic Economy, and Celebrity Chefs 206
Notes 223
Select Bibliography 257
Index 265