Potato: How Humble Spud Rescued Western World by Larry Zuckerman
	List Price:   $15.00 Unit Price:   $12.00 You Save:   $3.00 (20%) ISBN-10:   0865475784 ISBN-13:   9780865475786 Publisher:   Macmillan; Farrar, Straus and Giroux; North Point Press Category:   Agriculture Pub. Date:   October 1999 Pages:   320 Format:   Paperback
Subjects
POTATOES
Description/Notes
This book tells the story of how a humble vegetable, once regarded as trash food, had as revolutionary an impact on Western history as the railroad or the automobile. Using Ireland, England, France, & the United States as examples, the author shows how daily life from the 1770's until World War I would have been unrecognizable - perhaps impossible - without the potato, which functioned as fast food, famine insurance, fuel & labor saver, budget stretcher, & bank loan, as well as delicacy. 'Throrough and lively....Zuckerman is an excellent storyteller, both conscientious and colloquial....The book stimulates and illuminates.'--Emily Gordon, Newsday 'The story of the potato in Western civilization is part of the history of the table, of living conditions, of social attitudes, and even of views of heredity and degeneration. Zuckerman's exploration of these areas without losing his grip on the tuber is masterful, excuted with economy and wit.'--Katherine A. Powers, The Boston Sunday Globe The Potatotells the story of how a humble vegetable, once regarded as trash food, had as revolutionary an impact on Western history as the railroad or the automobile. Using Ireland, England, France, and the United States as examples, Larry Zuckerman shows how daily life from the 1770s until World War I would have been unrecognizable-perhaps impossible-without the potato, which functioned as fast food, famine insurance, fuel and labor saver, budget stretcher, and bank loan, as well as delicacy. Drawing on personal diaries, contemporaneous newspaper accounts, and other primary sources, this is popular social history at its liveliest and most illuminating.