The Potato in World History

Propitious Esculent

The story of one of the world's most important food crops

Praise for Cities: 
A fascinating account of how cities grow and sometimes crumble... Reader's magpie eye...picks out gems... Entertaining... Cities is, finally, a celebration of its subject's refusal to be explained or controlled.

Cities is vastly entertaining, and Reader has a fine eye for the telling anecdote and statistic... Reading it is a bit like wandering with an erudite companion through a great city in which the past rubs shoulders with the present and surprises lurk around every corner.

It is probably the most enjoyable book ever written about the matter of a city... fascinating

John Reader is an author and photojournalist. He holds an Honorary Research Fellowship in the Department of Anthropology at UCL and is a fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute and the Royal Geographic Society.

Baked, Roast, Boiled, Mashed, Steamed, French-Fried... We've probably all tried one or other type, and some of us eat them every day. The potato is one of the most familiar and ubiquitous foods, and part of our sense of humble, even mundane normality. Couch Potato. Cheap as Chips. Mr Potato Head. But the story of the solanum tuberosum is darker - one of struggle, disease, dirt and survival. 
 
Before domestication thousands of years ago, high up on the Andean antiplano, the high alkaloid content of potatoes made them poisonous to humans. But since then, these perfectly formed bundles of nutrition - naturally fat free, consisting mainly of energy giving carbohydrate, but containing protein and half of your RDA of Vitamin C and potassium - have been grown safely and cheaply underground in almost any weather and soil conditions, helping to fuel industrial revolution and population explosions. But their efficiency and versatility have also led to over-reliance and tragedy - most devastatingly, in Ireland. 
 
John Reader follows the potato's fascinating journey, from its origins and evolution in the Andes to its slightly mysterious arrival in Europe, where it became, in Britain, Ireland and throughout Europe, a crucial part of our gastronomic and social fabric. 2008 has been designated International Year of the Potato by the UN, and as global population swells and famine remains a constant risk, Reader asks what role the spud still has to play. Propitious Esculent is a highly readable exploration of the biology, history and social influence of our most humble, versatile foodstuff.

Cities

A magisterial exploration of the nature of the city from its beginnings to the mega-conurbations of today.

The most enjoyable book ever written about the city

Fascinating... Cities is a celebration of its subject's refusal to be explained or controlled

Vastly entertaining... Reading Cities is like wandering with an erudite companion through a great city in which the past rubs shoulders with the present and surprises lurk around every corner

A superb historical account of the places in which most of either live or will live

Cities is a fascinating exploration of the nature of the city and city life, of its structures, development and inhabitants. 
 
From the ruins of the earliest cities to the present, Reader explores how cities coalesce, develop and thrive, how they can decline and die, how they remake themselves. He investigates their parasitic relationship with the countryside around them, the webs of trade and immigration they rely upon to survive, how they feed and water themselves and dispose of their wastes. It is a sweeping exploration of what the city is and has been, fit to stand alongside Lewis Mumford's 1962 classic The City in History.

A Biography of the Continent

Africa

John Reader is a writer and photojournalist with more than forty years professional experience, much of it in Africa.  Born in London in 1937, he currently holds an Honorary Research Fellowship in the Department of Anthropology at University CollegeLondon, and is a fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute and the Royal Geographical Society.  He is the author of Pyramids of Life, Missing Links: The Hunt for Earliest Man; Kilimanjaro; The Rise of Life; Mount Kenya and Man on Earth.

Drawing on many years of African experience, John Reader has written a book of startling grandeur and scope that recreates the great panorama of African history, from the primeval cataclysms that formed the continent to the political upheavals facing much of the continent today.  Reader tells the extraordinary story of humankind's adaptation to the ferocious obstacles of forest, river and desert, and to the threat of debilitating parasites, bacteria and viruses unmatched elsewhere in the world. He also shows how the world's richest assortment of animals and plants has helped - or hindered - human progress in Africa.

John Reader

Where does our food come from? The story of one of the world's most important crops 
 
From the gold potatoes at the Sun Temple in Cuzco, Peru, the muddy ones in Ireland and those grown in China for McDonald's chips, the story of the spud is both satisfying and fascinating. John Reader follows the thread of the potato's story through the tapestry of human history, from its origins and evolution to its mysterious arrival in Europe, where it became a crucial part of gastronomic and social fabric. As global population swells and environmental sustainability becomes ever more crucial, Reader asks what role the potato still has to play - in this lively, readable study of our most humble foodstuff. 
 
‘Each chapter is discrete in content and manner, yet densely connected to the rest. Wonderful: to understand the whole world through a single crisp’ Guardian

John Reader

The Untold History of the Potato

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